Life Coach
by Dierhart
Summary: Set while Jane and Daria are in Boston; an unlikely agreement is struck between Quinn and Trent to get his life started in the attempts of turning Daria's head when she comes back to Lawndale.
1. Life Coach

Disclaimer: In regards to this story, I own no one and nothing.

Chapter 1: Life Coach

Trent Lane opened his brown eyes and groggily tried to make out the world around him. Immediately he was aware that he was unaware of where he was. Most people might have found this frightening, but for someone who was at ease in most situations and could sleep anywhere, this was a normal everyday occurrence.

He groaned and wiped his eyes, trying to think about where he was. He remembered playing at the Zon the night before with Mystik Spiral. A lot of memories were stirred up and he'd been drinking heavily to forget. Looks like he forgot a little too well.

Once more he opened his eyes and a red head swam before his blurred vision. "Daria?" he asked in surprise.

"As if," the girl stated flatly as he sat up on the bed and looked at her in confusion. She had long red hair, was wearing a baby blue camisole with a white bra on underneath, and a pair of tight blue jeans. She was sitting on a chair next to a bed with a book in her lap and a nail file in her hands.

"Whoa," he mused as he worked to place how he knew her. "Daria's sister."

She raised her eyebrows in disdain at this estimation. It wasn't the fact that she was Daria's sister that annoyed her, or that he had woken up and confused her for her sister. It was the simple fact that he had never once called her by her name in the five years that she'd known him. "God, Trent, how much did you drink last night?"

He was silent as he gave that question the deep contemplation that he felt it deserved.

"Nevermind, I just decided it was hypothetical," Quinn Morgendorffer cut off his train of thought as she realized how painful waiting for an answer could be.

"Cool," he answered in a gravelly low voice. "So...Daria's sister, where am I?"

She sniffed in disbelief, not understanding in the least what her brainy older sister found so enigmatic about this guy. "You don't know?"

"I could hazard a guess considering you're here...and it looks familiar. How'd I get here?" Trent replied staring at the sister of his sister's best friend. Yeah, that's all Daria was to him. His sisters best friend. A pain stabbed him in his heart and he closed his eyes to not look at the girl that resembled her so closely.

Quinn laughed a little derisively, "well, you came stumbling up to our door at around 3:30 this morning, ringing the doorbell, banging on the door and shouting that you had to talk to Daria. Mom and dad just about _f-reaked_ when they saw you and guessed your intentions towards their little girl. Luckily, Daria's still at Raft for another three months so you saved yourself some embarrassment there."

Trent tried to keep his face numb, but couldn't help the little raise of his eye brows at the mention of his drunken demands, or the furrow to his brow at the mention that Daria and Janey were gone for so much longer. He coughed into his hand to try and cover his emotions that he felt were dancing on his countenance for the airhead before him to see.

"Hmm, well, I better get going," Trent murmured once he subsided the coughing attack. "You know, band's got to rehearse, and I'm gonna be late...or early...whatever."

He swung his legs off the side of the bed and contemplated standing up. He contemplated walking out of the room and hoping that he didn't meet up with the elder Morgendorffer's - the parents of the two polarly opposite and yet oddly complimentary girls. Daria lived here. He could almost feel her presence in this house, suffocating him like it did at the Zon, like it did at his house, like it did everywhere. He couldn't breathe he was so surrounded by her memory. He sighed and dropped his head down, thinking about what to do from here.

"You know," the red-head commented as she watched him. "I miss my sister, too."

He looked up and over at her in surprise. "I talk to Janey all the time. Yeah, it sucks she's gone, but she's with me all the time."

"Earth to Trent, I said I missed _my_ sister, I didn't say anything at all about _your_ sister!" Quinn chastised him in annoyance. Really, couldn't fathom what Daria saw in him.

Trent blinked in surprise as he understood where the wheels in her head were trying to steer him to. He decided that backpedaling was the best course of action, his drunken stupor the night before seemed to have revealed more than he had intended on anyone ever seeing…ever. "Whoa, Daria's cool and all, but she's just Janey's little friend..."

"Ugh," Quinn groaned in utter disgust at the answer, standing up and picking up her book and discarded nail file. "I was going to see if I could help you out, but if you're still hung up on the age thing, then nothing will ever get settled."

She turned to leave, but paused as Trent grabbed her arm. "What do you mean, caught up on the age thing?"

Quinn turned back to face him, her hand on her right hip as she studied him critically. Well, he was about 3 platinum cards from ever dating her, but for Daria...she guessed he was cute enough. "Trent, you've known my sister since she was fifteen years old. You have had a crush on my sister since she was fifteen years old. Ba-ba-ba-ba!" she held up a hand to stifle his protests. "It's obvious, Trent, just like her crush on you was pathetically obvious. You let her grow up around you here in Lawndale, and then two years ago she and your sister packed up and moved out. You haven't been the same since. I agree that there's a big age difference between a fifteen year old and twenty-one year old, believe me I would have had my mother throwing your ass in jail so quickly if you had laid a hand on my sister during that time. The age difference between a twenty year old and a twenty six year old...it's not so big anymore, Trent. She's a big girl now."

Five years. Had it really been that long? Where had the time gone? He remembered so many times Daria being over with Janey. He used to stand outside the door and listen to their conversations on nothing. The proclamations Daria would make when she didn't think anyone other than Janey was listening amused and astounded him. Her mind was a fierce weapon should she choose to turn it on someone.

Now he stood outside the door and strained to listen to faint memories. He hadn't taken Janey moving out well, but it was really the lack of his blunt and brutal conversations with Daria that was taking its toll on Trent Lane. He couldn't like Daria like that though...she was...Daria. Beautifully, wildly, independently Daria. No one really stood a chance at catching her. She'd let you get close, she'd let you think you had a chance, and just when your fingers were about to enclose around her, she'd slip through your grasp like a moonbeam.

Quinn waited with as close to a patient expression as she could muster upon her face. When it became apparent that he was working through something, her boredom faltered, "you've never really thought about it, have you?"

"Thought about what?" he asked quietly, looking up at the girl.

"Your feelings for Daria," she answered, sitting back down and observing him further.

Trent shook his head slowly, "nope. That's off limits territory. Even without the age difference, Daria is Daria. She's the most together person that I know, even if she is a little socially awkward. I'm not going anywhere, I know it and you know it...and Daria knows it. Your sister though, the world's gonna fall before her."

"She'd like company for the ride," Quinn commented to him.

"I'm a bum, Quinn," he stated quietly.

Quinn started, more in surprise at his use of her name than anything else. "You know my name?" She asked him.

He stifled his laughter with a cough. "Glad you caught the important part of that statement."

Quinn, quickly realizing her folly, rushed to assure the man that she didn't consider him a bum, which was difficult given her true feelings on the subject. After many bumbling starts, she finally sighed and leveled with him, "look, Trent, you've done remarkably well with what you had. Yeah, you don't have a job and you don't really have goals, and you're basically a narcoleptic mess, but you're still a great guy! I mean, if I was left to look after a younger sibling right now with no real means of support, I wouldn't be in the best shape either, but that doesn't mean you're not worth Daria. She's crazy about you!"

"She was," he agreed.

"You knew?" Quinn screeched in disbelief.

He shrugged, "like you said, it was obvious. What was I supposed to do then though? She was a fifteen year old genius and I was a twenty-one year old loser. Besides, you don't think I didn't know what your mother would do to me if I even looked at her daughter?"

A frown flitted across Quinn's features as she realized how hard it must have been for Trent to know that he could have had Daria, but that age and an overprotective, lawyer mother interfered.

Deeply she studied the young man before her while he stared back with impassive eyes. He could tell the wheels in her brain were spinning somewhere involving him, he just had to sit back and wait.

"We have three months," Quinn finally stated firmly.

Confused, he raised his eyebrows, "for what?"

"To make you into someone that will knock my sister off her feet. Consider me your new life coach, Trent Lane. I will teach you manners, organization, things to talk with Daria about, everything that you will need to know in order to feel yourself good enough for her."

His brow furrowed in response to her words. "What?"

"Trent, my sister is a genius in many fields academically, but she's socially lacking. I, on the other hand, am a genius at inter-personal relationships. If you're willing, I'm willing to overhaul your entire life and restructure you into something presentable."

"Like a makeover?"

Quinn considered that, "yeah, like a life makeover. I'm not just talking wardrobe, I'm talking entire being. You'll be you, but you polished up."

He considered that, considered the river of apathy he had been floating down since he graduated high school. Mystik Spiral was all but broken up these days since he and Jesse couldn't get their act together enough to do much of anything. Max and Nick had pretty much sent through their resignation papers and were only riding out the last few concerts before they bailed altogether. His own life was going nowhere, and rather quickly at that. He had found a gray hair a few weeks ago. It had taken him several minutes of staring at himself in the mirror to come to terms with the fact that it wasn't an oddly colored blond hair poking out of his thick black locks, but rather a shiny silver strand of pigmentless death. The end was nie: he was old.

"You'll get my act together?" he asked her quietly.

"Well God knows that somebody has to!" Quinn stated sharply. She held out her hand to him. "I will do everything I can to help you get your life started."

He stared at the hand presented to him. "You think that this will get me Daria?"

She bit her lip and then quickly put her teeth away, afraid of the damage she would do to her constantly moisturized and exfoliated lips. "Look, Trent, I would like to say that this is going to completely change your life and cause Daria to swoon and fall into your arms so you two can go riding off into the sunset on a white horse with easy listening music playing in the background, but I can't guarantee that, and I think we both know how weird and wrong it would be if it played out like that. All I can say is that I think that you need this change for you and I highly recommend that you accept my offer."

"What's in it for you?" Trent questioned her.

She suppressed a sigh. She had rather hoped that he wouldn't ask why she would volunteer her time like this. Making a decision, she decided to give him the abridged answer. "I need a project to keep me occupied and I elected this would be it. It's a win/win situation."

In the back of his mind, he could hear a voice screaming at him that he was going to regret this, but he couldn't stop himself as he held his hand out and took the red-heads into his own, sealing the deal.

Thus formed the unlikeliest of alliances, and hell got just a little bit colder.


	2. Sisters

It had begun with a salmon colored organizer. Scheduling her dates and creating a grading scale with them had shown Quinn that she enjoyed not only being fashionable, but structured as well. The salmon had given way to other, more popular colors over the years, but the structure had remained within her. She would never admit it to anyone for fear of being labeled a geek or a brain, but she also enjoyed creating spreadsheets to better assess all of the data she gathered on boys, fashion, and trends.

In her hand she held a brand new, black organizer. She had sworn to herself up and down, with her hand on several copies of _Waif_ that she would never own a black organizer, but this one wasn't for her and she believed that the organizer should match the person. Trent Lane did not strike her as enjoying mauve, or chartreuse, or lilac, or even cobalt. No, basic black was the only organizer that she could choose for someone like the dark haired musician.

With a sigh, she curled up on her pink canopied bed and began to make plans in the organizer for the following day. She'd finished up her plans for wardrobe and was just starting on hygiene when the phone rang. Out of instinct, her hand shot to the cordless unit lying on her nightstand, but with a shrug she turned back to the book she was writing in.

Once upon a time, she would have been on that phone in a heartbeat ready to talk to her girlfriends about clothes, or to one of her many male admirers about where they could take her and what they should buy her. The times had changed though. Once she had graduated from high school about six months ago, she had changed. Her friends had gone away to college, and though that was her original plan, she had taken the year off instead giving her parents the simple excuse of she needed to find herself. Helen had not been happy, and Jake had simply shrugged and stated that it would give them another year to find the funds for it.

Truthfully, she wasn't all that sure that college was the right route for her. She wasn't sure what she wanted to do with her life, but she knew that a party school like Pepperhill wasn't it any more. She wanted to learn, she wanted to improve as a person, and she wouldn't find that at the place the rest of her friends had gone to.

Yes, she still found fashion interesting and she still had a string of dates lined up for the rest of the year, but those things weren't her life anymore. She wanted more than what those things offered her. She just wasn't certain of what that more was though.

With a smile she began to work once more on Trent's life overhaul. She still couldn't fathom what her sister saw in the boy, but she would be sure to polish him up to the best of her abilities and hope that it would give him the confidence boost needed to finally go after her sister. Quinn wasn't nearly as ignorant as most people saw her. She knew that Daria would accept Trent anyway that he was, but she also had seen a slice of the self-doubt that held Trent back from pursuing her. She would rectify that doubt, and if Daria received an upgraded model of the boy, well she didn't think that her sister would complain about an improvement or two.

"Quinn, Daria would like to speak to you!" Helen's voice carried up the stairs. The youngest Morgendorffer did not miss the strained quality to her mothers voice. Still not forgiven for her heinous misdeed and talking to Daria had only put it on the forefront of Helen's mind.

Picking up the cordless, Quinn pushed the "talk" button. "Hey, Daria."

There was a pause while Daria waited for the telltale click of Helen hanging up. Once she heard it, she greeted her sibling. "Hey Quinn, Helen's still on the rampage, huh?"

With a sigh, Quinn ran a hand through her long red hair, "it's been eight months since I told her I wasn't going to college until I figured out what I wanted to do with myself, you'd think she'd let up on it!"

Daria dry chuckled, "well, I just got a nice talking to about your wayward ways. Thanks, I'm not sure what she and I would have talked about if it wasn't for your wasting your life away."

"God, Daria, I'm not wasting away! I work a part time job, I date frequently, and I read...a lot. I hope you don't mind, but I've been going through your book collection lately."

There was a note of surprise in Daria's voice, "no, not at all. If you haven't read it yet, I'd look up "Madame Bovary", I think it will speak to you."

Quinn found a scratch piece of paper on her nightable and wrote down the title, "got it, thanks for the suggestion."

"Anytime." There was a pause before Daria continued, "you know, for what it's worth, Quinn, I'm proud of your decision."

"Really?" Quinn asked, surprised to find herself honestly seeking out her sisters approval.

Daria paused again. "Well, yeah. I mean, you took a big chance going against Helen's wishes like that and standing up for yourself. You took a non-conventional route in finding out what you want to do with your life instead of mindlessly following those drones you hang out with into a school that offers no chance of intellectual or personal growth. Instead, you've decided to take a year off and prioritize what you want to do. If you never decided to pursue your academics, I'll still be really proud of you. College, despite what parents and teachers tell you, isn't everything."

"Thanks, sis, that means a lot," Quinn murmured. "How is Raft treating you?"

"Oh, you know, the pressures of getting all of the credits for my major, next year I have to start on my thesis, and I still have to get all of my prerequisites to show that I'm well rounded."

"Sounds just like high school," Quinn smirked.

Daria chuckled again, "except I set my own hours and my teachers actually know a little bit about what they're talking about."

"And how's Jane?" Quinn asked. During Daria's and Jane's last summer before going off to college, Quinn had spent a little bit of time hanging out with them. She found Jane's quirky comments amusing and genuinely missed the girl when she had followed Daria to Boston.

She could hear the amusement in her sisters voice. "Hey Lane, how are you?"

"Generally dissatisfied with the art world, disillusioned by the conformity, and uninspired by the masses!" Came the muffled reply, "but there's vodka, so life is good!"

"Drunk," Daria answered her sister in good humor.

"So I gathered," Quinn retorted, wrinkling her nose at the thought. "She not liking BFAC?"

Quinn could almost see Daria's non-committal shrug. "She's an artist who is feeling boundaries being put on her. She was brought up with this butterfly analogy of her mother's...and this butterfly is feeling the first sting of confinement."

"Soul crushing, mind-numbing confinement!" Jane's voice clarified loudly in the background.

"Hmm, well, maybe limitations on her will spark creativity."

"That's the same thing the teachers are trying to tell her. She's not buying it."

"Too bad," Quinn mused. Her eyes traveled down to the organizer before her and she decided to test the waters. "Speaking of Jane, I ran into her brother today."

"Did Wind propose marriage to you, because if you become wife number six and Jane and I have to wear matching bridesmaids dresses, there will be hell?"

Quinn frowned, "What, who? No, I ran into Trent," she clarified, deciding there was no need to explain the circumstances of her and Trent's conversation. They were after all attempting to impress Daria with his new attitude on life, having him show up at her house in a drunken stupor would not impress her.

There was another long pause. "Oh, how is he?" There was an unmistakable note of interest in Daria's voice that Quinn smiled about. Her sister was still carrying that torch, just like he was.

"Good, he's really starting to get his act together," Quinn fibbed, knowing that starting the next day that would be true. "He asked about you."

_"Hook, Line, and sinker,"_ Quinn thought as she heard her sister take in a deep breath.

"What did you tell him?" Daria asked hesitantly.

"Oh, you know, that you were studying hard, you'd be home soon, the usual. He told me to tell you 'Hey', and that he missed you."

There was another silence before Daria said, "oh, well if you see him again, let him know I miss him too and that Jane and I will be back before he knows it. I worry about him sometimes with her gone. Jane's pretty much all he cares about."

Quinn smirked, knowing that this wasn't at all true. "Yeah, it's pretty amazing how much he cares for his little sister. It shows that he would make great father material."

She could feel Daria's blush at the thought. "Yeah," Daria agreed hesitantly. "So, Quinn, what have you been up to?"

"Oh, you know," Quinn started, agreeing to let the conversation drop for now. "Working, shopping, dating, reading...and I've begun a new project that I think will start to take up a lot of my spare time."

"Do tell," Daria stated, sounding eager to talk about anything other than Trent. Little did she know that was the subject of Quinn's project.

The redhead smiled, "I don't want to get into specifics right now, but it's going to be quite involved and require my skills in all areas. Epic project, Daria, epic."

"Sounds exciting," Daria responded, her voice not matching her words. Quinn smiled at that, she knew her sister was excited for her.

"It should be," Quinn agreed. "I think that it's something I can work on and be proud of...it's been a long time since I could say that."

Daria sighed, "I know how that feels. Believe me, Jane's not the only one drowning in teacher's expectations of mind-numbing conformity."

Quinn laughed, "is any of it inspiring Melody Powers to take down the communist regime?"

"Oh, she's met a few reds that need to be taken down since her travels to Boston," Daria agreed.

"Can't wait to read about it," Quinn told her, honestly meaning it. While she had developed an appreciation for classic literature, there was something about reading her sisters works that gave her a little thrill. A lot of the times she could see where her sister drew the inspiration from, and she found it enhanced the story all the more. Of course, there were those other times that _she_ was the inspiration, which wasn't nearly as much fun to read.

Daria sounded touched. "Really? Well, if you want I can email you over some."

"That'd be great!" Quinn replied enthusiastically.

They exchanged a few more pleasantries before deciding to hang up. "I love you, sis," Quinn stated before hanging up.

"Um, yeah, you too," Daria fumbled, still not used to her sisters declarations. It was odd enough hearing her call her "sis" let alone putting love in there!

They hung up and Quinn smiled for a few reasons. She had gotten to speak to her sister for the first time in weeks, and she found out that the project she was working on had merit because her sister still dug the boy.

Turning back to the organizer, she resumed her work with increased enthusiasm. She had three months to convince Trent that he was good enough for the brainy Daria Morgendorffer. More importantly, she had three months to continue to plant hints in Daria's head to be more receptive to the idea.

It was going to be a long three months.


	3. Boot Camp

Picking up a drum stick off the floor, Quinn began to tentatively lift articles of clothing off the items on the dresser, half afraid and half curious at what treasures or disasters she would find. She gagged as she moved a shirt and discovered what she believed used to be a sandwich, though it was too green and fuzzy to be sure. The putrid smell hit her nose and she quickly dropped the shirt back over the sandwich and closed her eyes, trying to find her center. After several seconds of cleansing breathing, her stomach calmed enough that she could handle opening her eyes and continuing her exploration.

Taking a quick look to her right where the sleeping musician lay oblivious to her presence, she pulled out the black organizer and crossed out "Makeover!" for day one and replaced it with "**Clean Room!**" Neither she or Daria had ever been perfect when it came to keeping clothing or other items off the floor, but the room that she was standing in was, in a word, unacceptable. How did he propose to make Daria fall for him if this was the spot she had to look forward to coming into with him? Though, the smell might be enough to make her weak in the knees, Quinn conceded.

Turning, she tripped over an open guitar case, catching herself with one hand on the ground. Looking down into the guitar case, she gagged again as she saw leftover Chinese food containers half full in the case. Miniscule flies were buzzing around the food, lending evidence to the fact that the room probably had its fair share of maggots. Pulling herself back to her feet, she replaced the black organizer into her purse and pulled out her own teal one. She made a note to herself about buying safety gloves and masks before replacing that organizer as well and continuing to look at the room.

To the left of the dresser was an alcove with a stereo system and turntable system in it. It amazed her to see that the stereo was in immaculate condition, it looked like it was played regularly and cleaned just as frequently, even the glass door that covered it was free of dust and fingerprints. Looking up, she saw that above the stereo in a built in shelf was a large stack of vinyl records, standing upright to avoid ring wear, in protective clear outer sleeves, and alphabetized.

Knowing that she hadn't seen this incorrectly when she walked in, but still having to check, Quinn took a few steps towards the door and looked on the other side of the bed where an acoustic guitar lay on the floor with an open CD case next to it and a pile of CDs spilling out of it.

The vinyl was kept so organized and protected, yet the rest of Trent's music collection, including the acoustic guitar that's case was being used to house molding Chinese food, was tossed on the floor to be stepped on and broken. Her brow furrowed as she tried to make sense of that contradiction.

Writing it off as an unexplained mystery, she turned to the closet that was behind her and in front of the bed. While she had always found her sister's closet to be severely lacking, this one was even worse. Pulling out the black organizer, she began to take stock of what was there and what needed to be there. Her goal was not to completely change Trent Lane into someone _she_ could date, so she knew a complete wardrobe overhaul was not necessary…well, it was, but she would let it go. Instead, she had opted that they would incorporate Trent's style, and she used the word loosely, with something a little more acceptable, dramatic perhaps. Her nose crinkled as she noticed that the only shoes in the closet were steel toed black work boots & army boots. Like her sister and Jane, he seemed to think a pair of black boots went with everything. They weren't completely wrong, but it had to be the right pair of boots, not army or work boots.

She turned back around and faced the bed where the musician still lay on his stomach, unawares to her invasion of his sanctuary. Her eyes scoured the gray walls, taking note of the torn and mis-hung posters, the crooked mirror and the chipped paint. She felt…sad. This room, these walls, were such an homage to a broken teenagers dream. The man that lay beneath them was heading towards his thirties, yet he still stubbornly kept the old remnants of his teenage years.

Her eyes flicked back over to the vinyl and the locked up turntable. She wasn't a psychiatrist by any stretch of the imagination, but something told her that she was onto something.

Opening the organizer she still held in her hand, she wrote down "Sisters of Mercy poster". The Sisters of Mercy were not anywhere near what Quinn would listen to, but from what she understood they were a gothic rock band from the eighties that hadn't had an album in many years. Gothic rock and the grunge rock that Trent played were different, though they were both noise to Quinn who preferred hip hop and bubble gum music, something that had a beat and she could dance to.

With a sigh, she shut the organizer and continued her surveillance of the room. Determining that she had seen enough, she stepped out into the hallway and picked up the bullhorn that she had used to help get Sandi back into shape after that unfortunate leg break, which she had placed outside the door prior to entry. She'd heard Daria and Jane joking enough to know that waking up Trent Lane was a skill and kid gloves could not be used on the task.

Turning the bullhorn on, she smirked and shouted into it "Trent Lane, take your hands off the underage high schooler!"

With a start, Trent woke up, sputtering, "officer, she's legal now!" Looking around, he rubbed his eyes, rolled over, and focused in on Quinn. He lounged back in his bed and never showed any emotion on his face that he thought it was strange that someone he barely knew was standing in his bedroom with a bullhorn in their hand. "Hey, Daria's sister, what're you doing here?"

Her eye twitched at his continued use of this moniker. Giving him the fact that he had just been woken up rather rudely, she decided to let her irritation slide. "Day one of your life makeover, Trent. Now up and at' tem!"

"Whoa, boot camp. What time is it?" he asked, fumbling to find his clock on his dresser.

"It's about a quarter after ten," she told him, grabbing an outfit out of the closet and throwing it at him with great reluctance. She couldn't believe she would have a hand in picking out something so hideously unfashionable to wear as the ripped up cargo pants and the stained green t-shirt she had just tossed at him. Sandi would have her head if the Fashion Club had still been around.

"Oh, man, I'm late," he muttered.

"Ten in the morning, Trent," she clarified, knowing there was no way that the musician was late for anything this "early".

Confusion passed over his face as he paused on his rising out of the bed. It was clear he was crunching some numbers in his head and was not happy with the results he was coming up with. "No way, man, hit me up in a couple of hours," he muttered as he pulled himself back into the bed and pulled the covers over his head.

"Trent Lane, get your ass out of bed, NOW!" Quinn screamed into the bullhorn as she pulled the blankets off of him. She got down so that she was face to face with the dazed musician who cracked an eye to look at her. "Don't make me get the water," she warned him lowly and calmly with a quiet fierceness that made her scarily resemble her mother.

"Yes'm," he muttered, knowing that he was faced with a force far more frightening than lack of sleep. Pulling himself out of bed, he grabbed the clothes that she had given him and trudged down the hall to the bathroom in his boxers and a white wife beater.

A satisfied smile crossed Quinn's face. She definitely felt that she had found her calling in life.

* * *

><p>She stood and turned around in the center of the room. Seven hours earlier, she hadn't been quite sure they could do it, but here it was – Trent's room was, for all intents and purposes, clean. Seven bags of trash, most of it rotting food, had been removed from the room and piled outside by the curb. Organizing, dusting, and a good vacuuming had made the room into something semi-descent. They could tackle the general dilapidation of the house at some other time, but for now, she had a clean home base to execute Trent's life make over.<p>

The musician in question was lying in the bed, staring at the ceiling, where he had been for about five minutes without making a sound. Briefly she wondered if he had learned how to sleep with his eyes open, but upon further inspection she could see the frowns coming and going across his face as he fell further into his thoughts.

"What're you thinking, Trent?" she asked him finally as she sat down on the floor next to the bed and looked up at him.

He turned his head and looked at her, a half smile crossing his face before it disappeared. "Just about how I've let everything go. I've never been organized or cared too much about the future, but it was weird to go through everything around me and see how far I have fallen. It's no wonder the guys in Spiral are always talking about calling it quits. I'm a loser, and how can a loser lead a band and make them successful?"

"We went over this yesterday, Trent, you're not a loser. You just got a little sidetracked trying to take care of yourself, Jane, the house, and everything else your parents should have been doing."

He shrugged, "I don't even have a college degree."

Quinn winced at that, then remembered her phone conversation with Daria the night before, "College isn't everything, Trent. For what you want to do with your life, college could teach you the history of music, it could refine some of your playing, hell it might even teach you how to run the business aspect of being a musician, but nothing can beat the experience you get playing bars and other gigs. Listening to music and knowing about the bands before you, as well as your contemporaries, could teach you the same thing, so could asking other guitarists at gigs to help you with playing the guitar. As for the business aspect, you can always hire someone to help you keep track of your gigs. You have a dream, and college is not the be all and end all."

He studied her for a second before he smiled and shook his head.

"What?" she asked, suddenly self-conscious. She rubbed her face thinking she must have had dirt on it.

"Nothing, you just sounded like your sister for a minute. She talked me out of a depressing state a few months after we first met."

The redhead raised a perfectly arched eyebrow, "Daria talked someone _out_ of being depressed?"

He shrugged again. "She gets me, or at least I think she does. She reminded me that I was doing what I loved and that even if I was never successful, most people couldn't ever say that they spent so long living their dream. You Morgendorffers are some smart chicks."

Quinn blushed and shook her head, "nope, I just have a smart sister that gives me the occasional pep talk as well."

A frown crossed his features as he realized that Quinn had about as many self doubts and self-deprecating thoughts as he did. "So, what's on the list for tomorrow, drill sergeant?"

She laughed at the new nickname and pulled out the black organizer from the bag she had stashed it in. "Alright, what I'm going to need from you is for you to let me know Mystic Spirals schedule. When you have rehearsals, when you have gigs, when you're going to be talking with pubs about scheduling shows. If I'm going to be overhauling your life, that means the band is going to be organized as well."

"Hmm," Trent seemed to consider that. "Yeah, that makes sense."

"Okay, so after band practice tonight, you do have practice tonight, right?" She waited for him to nod before she continued, "so after practice, write me out a schedule of when the band practices and any gigs that you currently have scheduled. I'll be back to pick it up tomorrow and then we'll get started on your makeover."

"Life makeover," he corrected her.

"Yeah, whatever," she glossed over his correction, knowing that she had planned a physical makeover for him today and had pushed it back until the next day. Replacing the organizer in the bag, she stood up and waved goodbye to him as she left the room.

He sighed and flopped back on the bed, staring at the ceiling once more. "At least I learned how to do an open D tuning."


	4. Ghost of Christmas Past

It's not that he disliked the mall. There were certain appeals to having all of these shops in the same location, and there was a certain appeal to watching all of the people in one place. Corporate America's headquarters was in a mall, of that he was damned certain. He couldn't be opposed to something that provided him with such great writing material.

He disliked this particular mall.

Trent Lane felt like a stubborn three year old throwing a temper tantrum as he sat in the front seat of Quinn's black two-door sports car with his arms crossed and a scowl on his face. He'd been resolute in his position for over twenty minutes and as far as he was concerned he would be resolute on it until she changed her mind and took him somewhere else.

She had told him that they were going to get food and discuss the next step in their life overhaul. Groggy from only going to bed five hours before, Trent had stumbled into the shower and thrown on the outfit she laid out for him before collapsing into the front seat of her car.

At no time during the drive had she mentioned that they were going to eat at the food court in the mall, and that the next part of her plan was to change his wardrobe.

Any other mall and he would have begrudgingly gotten out of the car and let the fashion demon have her way with him. Just not here.

This was the mall where he first realized he was attracted to her sister. The memory of that afternoon was so fresh in his mind still.

"Hi-jacked my brain, moth to a flame"

The lyrics has been constructed around peanuts, the delicious smell of peanuts that had haunted him for a day before he finally broke down and followed it to the peanut stand at the mall. As soon as he had realized that Daria worked at the peanut stand, his mind exploded.

Something had hi-jacked his brain all right, but it wasn't peanuts. It was the girl that worked at the peanut stand.

The situation would have been humiliating for both of them had they seen each other. He knew that her crush on him was embarrassing enough for her without the work uniform, and he was embarrassed now that he realized that he was attracted to her. Very attracted to her.

Memories of the awkward moments that they shared together had flood his brain and he had realized he'd been attracted to her for a very long time, perhaps as long as that trip to Alternapalooza. She'd been so uncomfortable on that trip, but had managed to push aside all of her awkwardness to help him out. He'd never known anyone could do that for him before.

They had escaped Alternapalooza and that embarrassing afternoon at the peanut stand unscathed, and they had gone on to have many more awkward moments around each other.

He didn't want to relive any of it.

So he sat in the car with his arms folded, his lips set in a grim line, and an irate red-head standing next to the passenger door threatening him with bodily harm if he didn't get out of the car and go into the mall.

"T-rent, I am not wearing sunscreen right now and I _will_ freckle! Move your ass!" she screamed at him, disregarding the other mall patrons on their way in from the parking lot.

He glanced sidelong at her, semi-amused by her proclamation. At the sight of real worry on her face, he sighed and opened the door and began shuffling towards the mall. She had been doing a lot for him and he didn't want to be the cause of any undue stress upon her.

Once inside, she shoved him down on a bench and ordered him to stay there while she went in search of the nearest restroom. He could see she was already digging in her purse looking for whatever skin cream she could find that would make the unprepared for time in the sun okay for the fair-skinned girl.

There was never a time he was more glad that he wasn't attracted to girls like Quinn. At one point he was convinced that as a musician he would have to date models, but the more time he spent around fashionistas, the more he was keenly aware that he'd never be able to handle it.

He'd said it a million times, they were cute, but way too high-maintenance. Hell, even Monique had been too much work and she wasn't nearly as girly as Quinn was. Monique was the least low maintenance rock girl he'd ever known, she wore the tattoos and the piercings and she wore the "I Don't Give A Shit" attitude, but there was no heart behind it. She did give a shit about her clothes and her hair and the way that she was perceived. The only reason that she bothered with the leather goth/rock look was because that was the look that went with the lifestyle, it's what she had to do if she was going to be the front person of a band.

They'd shared that in common. Ruefully he looked at the tribal tattoo that encircled his arm. Perhaps he shouldn't judge Monique that harshly.

The times that they were together were great, she had been a real sweet, down to earth girl when he first met her and they played in their first band together. They'd split up over creative differences. He wanted to go grunge, she wanted to go towards a more punk/goth feel. He'd taken the remnants of the band and formed Spiral, she'd found some like minded chicks and formed the Harpies.

The band break up was mutual and amicable. The relationship breakup – the first one – hadn't been.

He'd cheated on her the first time. She'd cheated on him the second. The third through seventh times, they'd broken up over priorities. Sometimes he thought she put her band before him. Sometimes she hated his lack of motivation. The eighth through the last time, and he had lost count of what number they were on now, had been over any reason they could come up with at the moment that made the thought of breaking up cross their minds – including his lack of taking out the trash at his house, and how long it took her to put on her makeup so they could go out.

They just weren't compatible.

Through it all, they had respected one another as friends and musicians. He maintained, she had the best stage presence out of anyone else in Lawndale, or Glendale for that matter.

It had been over a year since they'd last tried the relationship. He'd broken up with her, he said because he wanted to focus more on the band, but truthfully it was because it had felt disrespectful to her to date her when his mind always drifted back to a bespectacled brunette that he would rather spend his time with.

The last one had been an amicable breakup.

He still thought she took too long to get ready though.

The Harpies were touring the state on a miniature tour hitting up any joint along the way that did paid shows or the occasional free one, looking for any sort of exposure. He missed hanging out with them, but he definitely did not miss the time it took for that girl to throw on some clothes and makeup.

Daria wasn't like that.

He groaned at his mind's reminder.

There was nothing about Daria's appearance that screamed that she gave a damn what anyone else thought of what she was wearing. He respected that about her. He respected that she rejected dressing like the people that she hung out with to find a common bond with them. She let peoples minds and attitudes speak for themselves. She expected people to look past her exterior and get to know her and she did the same thing for them. He knew that she did, or she would never have made friends with that cheerleader and her brain-dead boyfriend. Daria saw the good in them despite their seemingly vapid shells.

He appreciated that. He appreciated that she looked beyond his shell and still saw something worth knowing.

His lips twitched into a wry smile as he saw the redhead walking back towards him. He appreciated that she had taught her fashion-minded sister to do the same.

"Oh my God," Quinn exclaimed as she walked back up to him. "There were these ignorant little girls in the bathroom, couldn't have been any older than Freshman, and they were talking about the most inane things. They were literally critiquing everyone's outfits as they came into the bathroom. One girl cried and left before she even used the bathroom! Then one of these girls actually called me 'Grandma' when I refused to give up my spot in front of the mirror so she could check her split ends and root-showing barley blonde bad dye job!"

"Whoa," Trent acknowledged, blinking slowly. "You met the Ghost of Christmas Past."

Quinn glowered at him, "I have never dyed my hair and I don't have split-ends!"

"I'm just saying, the Daria's sister that I first met took one look at me and dismissed me without a second thought. I believe the actual words were 'God, dad, are you kidding?' Kind of sounds like those girls in the bathroom to me."

Quinn flushed and sat down on the bench next to him. "God, I was terror."

He laughed roughly, "nah, you were just young and self-involved. You've joined the human race since then. Those girls will, too."

"The Fashion Club and I used to do the same thing that they were just doing," Quinn mused. "I used to make bets with Stacy on how many people Sandi could make cry in an afternoon. I've got some major karmic redemption to do."

"You can start by buying me lunch," Trent suggested, standing up and putting his hands in his pockets, slouching slightly as he waited for the girl to stand as well.

Quinn shook her head, a smile gracing her lips. "You're such a mooch!" She chastised him as she stood up and linked her arm through his, steering him in the direction of the food court.

Trent looked down at the girl on his arm and shrugged, "hey, if you wake me up with the promise of food, you have to deliver the goods. I think there's a song in that."

He began humming a tune and muttering to himself about waking up for food, losing himself into the inspiration he had found.

Quinn shook her head and thought about the situation she was now in. Two years ago she would never have even dreamed that she would be strolling through her mall with Trent Lane without declaring to everyone that looked at them that she was just helping this poor fashion challenged man become decent for other people to look at. Seeing those girls in the bathroom had made her so angry, she had wanted to throttle them and tell them that while looking presentable was important, it wasn't everything.

She got that now.

It made her sad to think of all of the potentially great people she had dismissed so readily for not wearing the right outfits or not having the newest haircut. She had actually rejected a boy based on the shape of his teeth before! Another over the length of his ear lobes.

"Thanks for letting me do this to you, Trent," she finally stated to the man she was walking with, feeling the surprise move through him at her words.

Playing off her serious tone, he shrugged, "hey, anytime you want to buy me food, I'm down."

Quinn nodded, recognizing that he understood her position and that he didn't want to discuss it any further. He understood that she was doing this as much for herself as she was for him. She was searching for some purpose in this world, she was searching for something solid to latch onto, something tangible and meaningful outside of her so far fluff filled life.

"You get me, Trent," she told him with a laugh.

He couldn't help but to feel proud that someone would say that to him. He had said the same thing to her sister, he had been so happy to have someone that he thought got the thoughts in his head. It was an amazing feeling to be able to provide that same comfort to someone else. He had never thought that he would be able to make someone feel that way.

Deciding not to ruin the sentiment with words, he simply nodded and resumed his humming, not stopping until they were settled with food in the food court; him with three slices of pepperoni pizza and her with a garden salad without any dressing, cheese or croutons.

"So why do you hate this place?" Quinn finally asked him, disturbing their peaceful repose.

He looked up at her and thought. "Memories," he admitted finally. "Things are still alive here. Things I'm not ready to remember."

She nodded, thinking back to the girls in the bathroom and how disturbing a reminder they served to how she was a few years before. "Your Ghost of Christmas Past?"

He considered that, "in a way."

"Does it involve my sister?" she teased him lightly.

Once more contemplation passed his countenance, "yeah, it does."

He didn't elaborate further, so she simply nodded and left it at that. Trent Lane was a man of few words, but she was starting to understand his language.

She was having a good time being around him, ghosts and all.

* * *

><p>The actual shopping was entirely beyond Trent. After they left the food court, the entire afternoon was a blur, a whirlwind of colors and outfits thrown at him and on him while he stood awkwardly to the side and watched the Tasmanian Devil that was Quinn Morgendorffer on a shopping spree work her magic.<p>

It didn't matter to her that the clothes weren't for her, though she did manage to pick some things up for herself while shopping for him. It was the exhilarating feeling of picking out the perfect outfit for the person that she was shopping for. She just loved to shop.

He didn't understand it. The majority of his closet came from Dega St. shops and thrift stores, or random clothes that wound up in the Tank from any number of band mates and hitch hikers that got picked up while they toured. If it didn't have too many holes and stains, and it didn't smell too much like vomit or body odor, he'd wear it.

He had never gone to the mall for the express purpose of updating his wardrobe before. To check out the music stores, to find Janey a present, and for some quality writing material by people watching, definitely, but never for something as unnecessary as clothing. It had always seemed like such a waste of time.

Still, he had to admit, there was something almost poetic about the way Quinn moved through the clothes racks, the way she held up clothes and compared it to him, muttering about seasons, cuts, and accessorizing.

It was art.

It wasn't painting or sculpting like Janey, it wasn't pottery like his mother, it wasn't word-craft like Daria, and it wasn't music like him, but Quinn was an artist. She had an eye and a skill when it came to clothing. The way that the shop owners came over and treated her with preferential treatment, no matter what store they were in, let Trent know that she was a master of her art. The store clerks would recognize and respect her seriousness and talent when it came to fashion, and they would go out of their way to cater to the girl.

He'd never seen clothing the way she did before, but he had to say, it was kind of beautiful.

"Do you know how to sew?" he asked her as he stood awkwardly next to one of the racks in a men's department store and watched as she critically chose between two almost identical pairs of black slacks. He'd never worn "slacks" before and found himself getting antsy at the change from his usual cargo pants. Where would he wear dress pants like that?

"Hmm?" she asked as she finally settled on a pair, shoved the other back onto the rack and tossed the pair she liked onto the pile growing in his arms. "Sew? No, not really. Mom and dad always just let me buy new clothes if mine tore, there's never been a reason for me to learn how to do something so mundane. Besides, I would have _died_ in high school if anyone had seen a patch job on an outfit!"

Trent shrugged, not understanding that sentiment in the least. "That's a bummer, I think you'd probably be a good designer."

Quinn paused and caught his eye for a moment, mulling over the idea of designing the clothes instead of just buying them. There had been plenty of times in her life that she wished she could find a specific outfit on a clothing rack and had to give it up as a pipe dream. It had never occurred to her that she could make the outfit.

Tiffany had thought of it.

Tiffany.

She never thought that one day she would be envious of Tiffany's motivation. After the Fashion club break up though, the Asian girl had taken her love and knowledge of fashion and had directed the energy into creation.

Her designs were good, too.

Quinn just didn't think she was talented enough to go that route. She had ideas, sure, but she was much better suited at choosing options that went together rather than designing all new pieces.

"I don't think fashion design's my calling," she finally answered, trying to sound casual, and making a point not to bring up her jealousy of someone that until a year ago she had been convinced didn't have a brain in her head. It upset her though that Tiffany had a calling.

The girl turned back to the options before her and smiled delightedly at the sight of a thermal long-sleeve selection. Layering was a look that could work for Trent.

"Fashion and function," she informed him as she grabbed one of his arms and dragged him over to the section, not noticing or caring at all that he struggled with the large pile of clothes already in his arms, as well as the six bags that he was carrying for both of their purchases so far. "Thermal will keep you warm in this spring weather while providing the color contrasts needed to make your outer shirt pop. Layering adds an element of interest to most outfits. T-shirts are great, a T-shirt with an undershirt makes you seem more interesting. These will also work great in the summer for your night gigs where it's a little cool, but nowhere near cold enough for a jacket."

Trent considered that recalling the summer concerts he'd done and how much he had sweat during them, "those stage lights are pretty warm."

She chose to ignore his statement, throwing one of every small thermal color shirt onto the ever growing pile to the chagrin of the gangly musician.

He was starting to get worried about many different things in regards to this outing. He could afford some new clothes and the belts and wallet he'd already purchased, but he didn't think he could afford all of these items that she was throwing at him. Rent still had to be paid on the house, and he was pretty certain the electricity bill wasn't paid last month, which meant that he needed to do that soon, too. Not to mention the trash, and the cable, and the gas…

And food.

He did like to eat and he was pretty certain there wasn't any food in the fridge.

More important than money though was the fact that his arms were starting to get very tired from holding the clothes. When he thought about his arms getting tired, it reminded him that his sleep schedule was off due to this whole daytime thing she was pushing on him, and that made his eyes tired.

He didn't know much, but he was certain that if he fell asleep while they were shopping for him, he would get to witness a volcanic eruption of emotion the likes of which he'd never seen before and would hope to never see again. Quinn was temperamental and it was clear to him that she took this all very seriously for some reason.

He appreciated her interest in him, he appreciated that someone was taking the time to help him. It had only been a couple of days, but Quinn had already shown more personal interest in his health, well-being, and thoughts than anyone outside of Janey and Daria. He didn't want to disappoint her by showing her what a slacker he really was. Still, sleep sounded so good, and the clothes were pretty soft and he couldn't help but wonder what it would feel like to lay his head down on them for a little while, just while she was standing here talking about layering and summer time.

Quinn was not entirely unaware of the struggles going on in the man beside her. She'd dragged several guys on shopping trips with her and knew that this was not fun for him. She watched from the corner of her eye as his eyes started to droop and his expression slackened as sleep started to take over him. She had to admit, she'd been curious to know whether or not he could fall asleep standing up and was happy to discover that he indeed could.

"Alright, Trent, that seems good for now!"

His eyes snapped open and he looked groggily and a bit guiltily at the younger girl, expecting to see her angry and threatening him, but was surprised to find her just looking expectant.

"Well, go on! To the dressing room! March, young man, march!"

"Yes'm," Trent found himself muttering as he turned and headed to the back corner where he had seen the dressing room a half hour before. His arms were shaking from the continued weight upon them and from keeping them stretched out for so long. Relief was to be found in the dressing room and he marched there with the singular goal of dropping all of the items the second he walked in the door.

Quinn followed behind him, grabbing some extra items as she walked as after thoughts for the man. She was busy constructing an image of him in her mind, going over what she would like to see him wear and what she wanted to do to his hair. She knew that some of the things she had thrown on that pile weren't going to work for him – they were too trendy to fit in Trent's world. It was a sad reality, but she hoped that they could take at least five or six things out of the mountain he was now struggling to carry.

Woefully she looked out the door as they passed by to see Cashman's on the other side. Theresa had graduated college and no longer worked there, but she'd been replaced by Melanie who was equally accommodating to the fashion-minded girl and more knowledgeable about the newest lines coming out of Paris for every season.

How she wished that she was shopping at Cashman's for herself, and that she was filling up her closet with a new spring line.

"Another day, maybe," she murmured as she turned her focus back to Trent as he came up to the dressing rooms that said a ten item maximum per customer. Quickly she slipped a ten dollar bill into the man's hand that was monitoring the dressing rooms, "we're going to need that maximum waived."

Quinn evaluated the guy and determined that he was definitely cute enough to go on a first date with her, but nothing more. Still, it'd been a while since she'd gone on a first date with someone, and he was awfully cute.

"Uh, I can't do that…" the blonde guy replied, trying not to stare at Quinn.

A pout crossed her lips and he started to feel his temperature rising and perspiration beginning to show on his brow, "not even for me?" she asked in a baby doll voice.

Trent did his best to hide his smile and not laugh as he watched Quinn use her charms to her advantage. He'd heard Daria and Jane mention her ability to turn guys into Jello whenever she batted her eyes, but this was his first time seeing it in person. He had to wonder how she had perfected that art, and then had to wonder if she had used those skills against him to get him into this situation he was now in.

His mind drifted back, but was unable to come up with a moment where Quinn had seemed flirty with him. Disgusted, yes; annoyed, yes; amused, at times, but not flirty.

"Well…uh, oh man…I can't take your money, here, just hurry up!" The guy handed the money back to Quinn and ushered Trent inside. The blonde tried to stop Quinn from following Trent into the dressing room, but failed when she anxiously bit her lower lip, mindful not to apply too much pressure, and began to fake crying, exclaiming that he was very mean for not allowing her to help her friend out just because she had breasts.

Trent didn't bother to wait for the turnout of that show. He'd seen enough in the brief moment of interaction Quinn had with the guy that she would get her way no matter what. He worried what the world would be like if they found a way to bottle her manipulation.

He was unsurprised when she showed up a moment later with a cheeky grin on her face. "I got his number," she announced in a sing-song voice.

He raised an eyebrow; he wasn't sure, but he was almost positive that it had to be against the work code of this place to pass out your number to the patrons. Dismissing it since it was Quinn's life and she seemed to be happy with the conquest, he entered one of the stalls and began to change into one of the outfits. "Do I have to try on all of these thermal shirts if one fits?" he asked her, hoping for the negative.

"Of course you do!" Quinn responded in exasperation. "How can we tell what colors work on you if we don't see you in them? Besides, you can never trust the labels, sometimes things aren't really the size they say they are."

He groaned, but decided not to fight her on it. Clothes were her medium and he had no right to tell her that she didn't know her skill when he had never studied it. Besides he had absolutely nothing better to do at this moment. If they weren't at the mall, he would still be sleeping, he would have nothing to show for this day, and it would just be one more day where his life had slipped past him.

Acting as a mannequin, he put on outfits to have Quinn criticize them and praise them, not offering his own opinion on the subject. While he would have been more comfortable on Dega St. amongst his own people if he had to shop, he really did not care what clothes covered his body. If she thought that he needed these things, he would trust her opinion on it. Him trying to judge clothes was like her trying to tune a guitar without any music lessons.

With brutal efficiency she narrowed the large pile into one small keep pile and one large "what the hell was I thinking" pile. He snorted at her name for it, since it had been what he'd been thinking since he realized he was going to the mall that day.

He was just relieved when they got to the cash register almost an hour after entering the dressing room that he got to take the smaller of the two piles. He fumbled in his pockets for cash, a worried frown crossing his face as he tried to calculate the total out, but was stopped as Quinn slid a gold card across the counter to the cashier.

Confused, he caught her eye and she smiled graciously. "Compliments of Helen Morgendorffer. I explained to my mom why I've been hanging out with you the last few days. She's still very leery of you dating Daria, but she does appreciate you trying to turn your life around and wants to encourage you to keep doing so."

Trent wasn't sure what to say, but found words unnecessary as the cashier swiped the card and took the decision away from him.

Later after getting home and putting away the purchased items, he lay in bed and thought back to Quinn's words about Helen's feelings towards him. He knew that Daria didn't take a lot of stock in her mother's opinions, but it was obvious that if he wanted to stand a chance with her, he would need to get her mother on his side as well. Helen was a forceful woman and she was a master manipulator, it's where her two daughters got it, he knew that if she put her mind to it, she could shut him down with Daria before he even got a chance.

He had no idea how he was going to convince Helen that he would ever be good enough for her daughter.


	5. No Way

Jane Lane stared perplexed at the phone in her hand her mouth slightly ajar and her eyes widened. She had just gotten off the phone with her brother, Trent, and he had mentioned that he had gone to the mall that day with Quinn.

She had asked for clarification several times about what "Quinn" he was talking about. She only knew one, but she was sure that could not be whom he was talking about. There was no way that _Quinn Morgendorffer_ had taken her brother to the mall. There was no way that these two people were hanging out socially.

While Jane had to admit that Quinn had changed a lot over the five years that she had known her, she was sure that Quinn hadn't changed that much to develop feelings for a slacker like Trent. There was no way that the girl that had three boys fighting over her the entire time she was in high school without ever seriously dating any of them had managed to convince her brother that she was relationship material.

There was no way!

He had confirmed the identity of the girl and had refused to elaborate any further on the nature of their relationship or why they had gone to the mall, leaving it at simply they had. She shuddered physically and violently at the thought of her brother and Daria's sister involved with each other. There was no way.

Jane had always thought that Trent and Daria would be cute together and she had enjoyed the better part of her high school career relentlessly teasing her best friend about this potential relationship. It wasn't until the Tom fiasco that she had let that idea go as a pipe dream. The two just never seemed to find a way to make it work despite how perfect she thought they could be together.

She'd always thought that Trent's laid back attitude complimented Daria's "We're All Going to Hell" attitude perfectly.

Now this.

Trent and _Quinn._

She had to get to the bottom of this. Her mind was going to explode if she didn't decipher this unholy alliance. Scrolling through the address book on her cell phone, she dialed the Morgendorffer house number and listened to the ringing as she stood up from her bed, wandered to the kitchen and poured herself a shot of vodka. She was going to need a drink if she was to handle the potentially disturbing image of Quinn and Trent dating. Quinn and Trent in bed together.

She shuddered again and pounded the shot just as Jake Morgendorffer's agitated "Hello!" came over the line.

She grimaced and coughed before saying, "Hey, Mr. M., can I talk to Quinn please?"

"Hey, Jane-o!" Jake exclaimed, his agitation drifting away at this familiar person in his life. "How's old BFAC treating you?"

"Oh, it's swell, Mr. M.," she lied with a roll of her eyes. "You know how much we Lane's love school and boundaries. Anyway, is Quinn there?"

"Yeah, sure, hold on," he answered not seeming to notice or mind the sarcasm in Jane's voice. She cringed again as she heard him shout, "Quinn! Phone!"

"Hello?" Quinn's peppy voice came over the line. At the sound, Jane poured herself another shot. She wasn't ready for this. She was not ready to accept Quinn as her brother's first relationship since Monique.

"Hey, Princess Grace," she greeted the girl, downing the other shot as quickly as the first.

"Jane? Thank, God! I was hoping to get to talk to you before Trent did. He said he was going to call you today and he's not the best with words…ironic since he writes the songs for his band…"

Jane froze, not liking the sound of that in the least. "I just got off the phone with my brother. It's why I'm calling." Jane managed to choke out, turning around and leaning against the brown and blue Formica countertop of her and Daria's kitchen, and prepared herself for the worst. "I was just wondering when you started dating my brother?"

"Ew, gross!" Quinn exclaimed. "I mean, no offense to your brother and all, but are you kidding me? No. Ew, no! God, no! Trent is super sweet and all and he's a really great guy…for my sister, but not for me. I knew he'd not be able to explain things correctly."

"He didn't explain things at all," Jane replied, thankful to hear Quinn's adamant denial of any sort of feelings for Trent. The thought of Quinn married to Wind had amused her when Daria brought it up, and she had agreed wholeheartedly with the matching bridesmaid dresses just not happening, but the thought of the diva princess with her favorite brother was upsetting and wrong.

Still, if they weren't dating, then they had even less of a reason to hang out, which confused the artist all the more. "So, if you're not screwing my brother, what the hell were you two doing at the mall today?"

"You're so crass, Jane," Quinn scolded her.

"Crass? Which Morgendorffer am I talking to again?"

"Haha, very funny," Quinn stated sourly. Jane could practically see the eye roll and the toss of red hair that went with that tone. She'd seen it a thousand times in Quinn's interaction with Daria, and it made her smile each and every time. Quinn had definitely grown on her over the years. "Trent and I have a…business arrangement. I'm giving him structure and he's giving me a chance to put my relationship and social knowledge to work. I cultivated the art of matchmaking at a very young age and I'm very happy to be given the chance to showcase my skills on a cause so close to both of our homes."

Jane looked at the phone for a second before putting it back to her ear. "What the hell are you talking about?" she asked as she wandered into the living room and collapsed on the beat up blue sofa that she and Daria had picked up at a garage sale when they first moved in to this two-bedroom apartment at the start of the year. Daria had lived on campus for her first year at Raft, while Jane had lived in an apartment closer to the BFAC campus for her first semester. At the end of summer, they had moved into a place mid-distance between their two schools and had co-existed better together than with either of their previous living arrangements.

It was definitely a lot nicer to live with someone that understood her creative moods and whims than the pretentious art student that she had lived with originally that looked down on her for her choice of mediums. Like shoelaces and bubblegum weren't an acceptable form of artistic expression!

That girl's work had been the most mundane portfolio Jane had seen outside of the Lawndale Art in the Park. How she had received an art scholarship blew Jane's mind. Like paint on a canvas was the only way to express yourself!

Quinn sighed heavily, not understanding how Jane could be so dense. She had clearly spelled it out in her vehement denial of being in a relationship with Trent. "Keep up, Jane! I'm setting up your brother and my sister!"

Jane's eyes wandered over to the vodka bottle still sitting on the counter in the kitchen. Those two shots couldn't be hitting her that hard, so she must have heard the airhead correctly. "You're kidding right?"

"Your brother is totally gaga over my sister, moping puppy with her gone. And I know for a fact that Daria is still pathetically mooning for him as well. They're perfect for each other and they're both too impressed by the other to recognize that they're perfect for each other. That's where we come in."

"_We_?" Jane asked wryly. "Quinn, I stopped beating that dead horse over two years ago. I was unaware that I had passed the flogger on to you. Besides, Daria's moved on."

There was a long pause. "Is she seeing somebody?" Quinn finally questioned the elder girl, worry in her tone.

"Well, no, but…"

"Then she hasn't moved on," Quinn concluded, resuming her self-assured bounciness. "When I brought up Trent to her the other night and earlier today, she definitely exhibited classic signs of crushing on him. Trust me, Jane, together we can make two of the most important people in our lives happy."

The dark haired girl sat on the couch with an even more perplexed expression on her face than when she had been speaking with her brother. She thought back to every conversation with her brother that she'd had recently. Nothing had seemed amiss. Sure, he'd asked how Daria was doing, requested that she gave his regards, but nothing that suggested that he was pining away for her. He'd always asked about Daria since she had first started hanging out with her. The petite brunette was her only friend that Trent knew, of course he would bring it up as a point of conversation. She'd never seen anything odd in him inquiring about her friend's life. "What makes you so sure that my brother likes Daria?"

"Because he told me!" Quinn exclaimed, before she proceeded to tell a very long version of the last few days taking several diverging breaks as she interjected stream of conscience thought with facts. After taking Jane through the last few days, up until the very minute that Quinn had answered the phone for Jane, the girl finally said, "long story short…"

"Too late," Jane muttered, realizing that they had been talking for almost half an hour. Her head was throbbing from the story that was just spun to her. Her fingers and toes felt tingly from the alcohol, but something told her that she was going to need another shot by the end of this evening if she was going to cope at all with Quinn's matchmaking.

"Long story short," Quinn tried again, the sour note reentering her voice at Jane's obvious sarcasm. "He totally digs her and wants to make himself worthy of her. It's super sweet and I can help on that end, but you've gotta help me get Daria to see herself as worthy of him. I mean for the life of me, I don't understand why Daria would think that she wasn't worthy of Trent, but I think we both know that..."

Jane snorted with laughter, cutting the girl off, "Quinn, my yenta days are over. I tried to get Daria together with my brother years ago, it didn't work. It made her angry. It made him uncomfortable. I got yelled at by both of them. I won't stop you from trying, but I really can't commit myself to helping."

"But you _HAVE_ to!" Quinn lamented loudly. "Jane, I can't do this without you. Daria's too far away!"

"Quinn, I'm not one of your flunkeys, I don't _have_ to do anything for you. You're messing with the lives of the two most important people in the world to me. If you mess them up, I'm going to be the one that has to put everything back together. Daria's my best friend, I need her, and Trent is the only person in my family that I really see as family. I can't commit myself to helping potentially ruin their friendship and my relationship with both of them."

There was silence on the other end as Quinn considered Jane's position. Finally, the girl sighed. "Okay, I can see your point. It would be awkward for you if things went south. I just want my sister happy, and I want your brother to be happy, too. Even if this doesn't work out and they don't end up together, I want him to feel confident and proud of himself. He doesn't feel either of those things. It's sad. I just want to help."

"Look, Quinn, I can't help you, but I can promise that I won't try to stop you. Who knows, maybe you really will turn my brother's life around. Maybe you can do the impossible and get those two together."

"Thanks, Jane," Quinn murmured, sounding a lot older and sadder than she had when she first answered the phone. "I'm disappointed you won't help me, but I respect your position and will just have to find a way to do it without you."

Jane thanked the girl and ended the conversation with her, leaning her head back on the back of the couch and staring up at the cracked ceiling above her head. She had been incredibly worried about the idea of her brother dating Quinn, but she was even more worried to discover that Quinn might be setting up her brother and best friend to get hurt. She knew that the girl was only trying to help, but Jane knew from past experience that meddling in people's love lives was complicated and potentially devastating to friendships and relationships.

Her head turned to the door as she heard it open and watched as her roommate walked in. Daria glanced towards the counter and quirked an eyebrow as she saw the bottle of vodka out. "Rough day?"

"Confusing day," Jane answered.

"Yeah, alcohol's good for clearing up confusion," Daria quipped.

Jane smirked and watched as her friend poured herself a shot as well and downed it. Daria wasn't much of a drinker, never had been, but she had been known to take a couple of drinks when something was bothering her. Clearly, something was on the young genius' mind that was making her need a lack of clear thought.

"Rough day?" Jane questioned back.

"Confusing day," Daria mimicked, coming into the living room and sitting next to Jane on the sofa. She began unlacing her boots as the alcohol entered her blood stream and made the fuzzy feeling start to kick in. Since she didn't drink often, Daria was a lightweight and needed only a shot to start feeling the affects. That one shot would have her feeling warm and relaxed for many hours.

Jane laughed and looked back up at the ceiling, thinking about the disturbing conversation she had finished with Daria's sister a mere twenty minutes before. "What happened?"

"I spoke to my sister," Daria concluded after thinking of the most succinct way to say it. Unlike her sister, Daria did not feel the need to draw out conversations by pouring over every detail and getting lost in the side thoughts she had while in each situation. Jane always found that amusing about her friend considering she was a fiction writer that wrote in graphic detail each scenario that crossed her mind.

Once again, Jane laughed at her friend's answer, although a knot settled into her stomach at the mention of the redhead. She hated to think about what would happen if Quinn's meddling backfired. "That'll do it. What'd Princess Grace have to say to you?"

"I still don't know," Daria answered honestly, finishing unlacing her boots and kicking them off, revealing worn gray socks underneath. The brunette stuck her feet on their wooden coffee table and looked over at her black-haired best friend. "She's up to something, something evil, and I think it involves me."

Jane smirked at the conclusion Daria had drawn and closed her eyes, deciding not to meddle like she told Quinn that she wouldn't. The redhead was many things, but she wasn't evil. Misguided maybe, but not evil.

"Don't worry, amiga, she's harmless."

* * *

><p>Jane sat on her bed staring at the phone in her hand like she had been for the past half hour. Daria had long since gone to bed, having taken a couple of more shots with Jane over the course of the evening to the point where she had stumbled to her room and loudly declared that unless the three horsemen of the apocalypse showed up at the door for her, she wasn't to be woken up.<p>

They had talked briefly about Quinn's phone call to Daria that afternoon. Apparently the younger girl had made up some story about running into Trent on an outing and had talked about Daria. She'd called Daria because she had wanted to get final confirmation that the ring she had in her belly button so many years prior was real because Trent had confirmed to her that he'd been with her when it had happened. On the surface, it appeared like a legitimate social phone call. Quinn had run into a mutual acquaintance, they had talked about their common link, a story was told, Quinn was merely looking for the truth.

It was obvious to Jane though that Quinn appeared to have forgotten was that her sister was not stupid when it came to people, just a little inexperienced. Daria had clearly seen a correlation to the two phone calls she'd had with her sister where Trent had been a focal point. If he had come up at all in any of their conversations since Daria first started attending Raft, it wouldn't be suspicious, but since he hadn't, warning bells were going off in her head. Quinn was clearly up to something, something involving Trent Lane, and it had put Daria completely on edge thinking about it.

What had caught Jane's attention though was how flustered such an inane conversation with Quinn had made Daria; bothered to the point that she drank away her evening to calm down. It wasn't like her best friend to let her sister get under her skin like that in such a short period of time, and definitely not over a topic that was years old. That belly button ring was ancient history, and it hadn't bothered her when she talked with Quinn about it when she'd first gotten it. Nothing Quinn had ever talked with Daria about had ever provoked such a defensive response.

What had made Daria that antsy before was her rash-inducing crush on Trent.

Jane hated to admit it, but it looked like Quinn was right.

Daria had a crush on Trent, and apparently Trent had a crush on Daria. This could potentially be the best thing that had ever happened in her world, or if it all went south, it could be the worst thing.

With a sigh, the young artist dialed a number and waited for her call to be answered. "I'm in," she finally stated once she was connected.

Several hundred miles a way, a grin crossed a devious redhead's lips as she got her first assistant in her endeavor.


	6. Kind Of

There were few things in this world that made Quinn nervous, but she did feel trepidation as she followed Trent down the stairs into the basement where the other members of Mystik Spiral were already starting to warm up for rehearsal. She'd seen and been around them briefly before, but she'd never really met the members of Spiral and she was unsure of how they'd react to her in their lives. She had struck up a deal with Trent to completely overhaul their band leader's life, including the band.

She didn't know how they would react to her intrusion. It would have been like having Daria come in and overhaul the Fashion Club. Daria cared about as much about fashion as Quinn did about grunge rock. It was an insult, a travesty…it was happening.

"Hey, guys, sorry to keep you waiting," Trent drawled as he ambled over to where his guitar was resting and strummed a few chords as he checked the tuning.

"Uh…Who's the redhead?" Nick asked, his vibrant dyed red hair falling into his eyes slightly as he nervously looking towards Quinn where she took a seat on the bottom step.

Trent looked confused for a second before catching sight of the girl that came down the stairs with him. "Oh, yeah, guys, this is Quinn Morgendorffer, Quinn, these are the guys. That's Nick, Max, and Jesse."

"Morgendorffer?" Nick asked. "I've heard that name before…"

Quinn sighed and hung her head, knowing she was going to have to say the nickname Trent had given her. "I'm 'Daria's Sister'," she sighed. "We've met before. I helped bail you all out of jail."

That was a statement she never thought she'd have to make.

It was odd for her to be around people that liked her sister more than they liked her. She was so used to shining in the spotlight and having Daria be the one that was introduced as 'Quinn's Sister' or 'Quinn's Cousin', or any number of odd relations that she had told people Daria was to her.

Being "Daria's Sister" happened whenever she was around the Lane's and it was always odd, but at this point in her life, she was okay with it. She was proud to be Daria's sister, she was proud to be associated with the smartest person she had ever known.

"Oh yeah, _Daria's Sister,_" Jesse intoned, nodding at her and turning his attention back to his guitar. He needed to know nothing else beyond the fact that she was related to that small brunette girl that sometimes showed up at their shows and that Trent and Jane thought was cool. Personally, he found talking to Daria like speaking to someone from another country, he could get the general idea of what she was talking about, but he had a feeling that a lot was lost in translation.

Max stood up from his drum kit, "You know we like Daria, she's like family, but what's _her_ family doing here?"

"She's here for me," Trent replied coolly, not feeling the need to currently elaborate any further on the nature of Quinn's presence. He'd already taken the third degree from Janey on his hanging out with Quinn and didn't have the patience to go through it again with his band.

Max looked like he wanted to inquire further, but shrugged when he saw the passive resistance on the leaders face to discuss the situation. "Whatever, man, we've only got a couple of jobs left, then you can screw your life up any way that you want. Just never thought our Yoko would be Daria's sister."

Quinn glowered at him, and then smiled at Trent when he didn't dignify the man's statements. "Let's do 'Ow, My Face'," Trent commanded.

The girl quickly took out her notebook and started making notes as the opening chords of the song came on. She cringed at the raw sound of Trent and Jesse screaming the lyrics into the mic. Despite the battery to her auditory sense, she took that it was an unrequited love song…kind of. The chorus fell a little flat for her, but it was clear that he had a crush at the time of writing it.

She'd caught enough of Jane and Daria's conversations, and remembered enough from the time Trent had stayed with them that he and Monique had been off and on for a long time. This song wasn't about her. She had to wonder if it had been written at the beginning of Trent realizing he had a crush on Daria.

As if sensing her thought, Trent looked over at her and shook his head while he wailed "Ow, my nose! Ow, my face!"

She frowned, but wrote it off as another unexplained mystery. She continued to watch the band as they moved through song after painful song. Some were clearly about Trent's destructive relationship with Monique, some were anti-establishment, and some for the life of her she couldn't figure out what were about. She had a feeling a lot of their songs came from the same inspirational source he had tapped into the previous day when he tried to make the song about waking up for food.

The band lacked clear focus. She was sure of that. They lacked a unified sound, they lacked a unified goal, and they lacked a unified message. They were four people who knew how to play instruments…kind of. Other than their liking to play in a band, Quinn could not come up with one unifying factor for the band.

She wasn't thinking matching outfits to make them a band, they weren't a boy band though they were a band of boys. They just needed something that made them feel like they weren't wasting their time just playing instruments. Again a feeling of sadness washed over her as she considered the trainwreck of Trent's life. He was playing in a band with the same boys he went to high school with, still trying to get a sound together that would mark their place in the music world.

He was stagnant.

She was scared.

It had only been less than a year for her since she'd left high school, but here she was, still in Lawndale, still waitressing, still trying to come up with something that gave her life meaning. She could imagine that the eight years had flown by for Trent, that he had barely even noticed their passing before he looked around and realized that his life was passing him by and he had no idea what he was doing.

So, she was scared. She was scared that in eight years, she would wake up and find herself at her parent's house, waitressing, without a relationship, without a purpose, without a clue.

How the hell did she think that she could help him when she had no idea what she was doing with her own life? _Tiffany_ was in college right now working on a fashion degree. _Stacy _ was in college working on her general ed. degree. _Sandi_ was in college working on her political science degree. She didn't even know that Sandi knew what political science was!

So how the hell was she supposed to help Trent? It was all starting to seem hopeless now. She had made an agreement with Trent to help him get what he wanted because she was desperate to find something to do that had some depth to it. The more she thought about it, the more she realized that she had no idea what she was doing.

It was like the dance all over again. She had been forced volunteered to be the coordinator for the school dance. She'd been so overwhelmed by the gargantuan task and her own ignorance on what needed to be done that she had handed off the entire project to Jane…and then had taken all the credit.

A frown crossed her face as she realized that she was once again starting to be overwhelmed by the broader picture and that once again she had tried to shove the work off onto Jane. Once again, Jane had come through in a pinch and had taken on the workload.

Quinn never knew why Jane always stepped up and helped her, but she realized that her sister's best friend was a thousand times better than her own friends. She was so grateful that when her friends bailed on her to plan a dance, Jane was there; when her friends had all kicked or creeped her out of their houses, Jane was there; and when she started to get overwhelmed by her own perceived inadequacies, Jane was there.

She would really have to do something nice for the artist, she decided.

Quinn was startled out of her reverie by Trent kicking her on her foot. She looked up and realized that rehearsal was over, or they were on break, it was hard to tell judging from the way Jesse was still strumming away on the bass and the way Max and Nick were wrestling with each other on the ground.

"You didn't even comment on my outfit," Trent drawled to the redhead, a half smirk on his face.

Quinn had been so nervous about coming to the rehearsal that she hadn't even looked at the musician when she came in. She had to admit, the style wasn't hers, but the black cargo pants, coupled with the long sleeve green shirt, and the black t-shirt that espoused some local dive bar in white was a nice change from the ripped up pants and stained shirt she was used to seeing him in. It was cleaner, more matched, and the shade of green in the shirt really brought out the flecks of green in his hazel eyes – flecks she'd never really noticed before.

"Oh my God, you look so good!" she exclaimed, standing up and hugging him quickly before stepping back to observe him further. "See, nothing drastic, but a clean outfit and some complimentary colors to your seasonal complexion go a long way. Just remember, the washer and dryer are your friends. If it gets dirty, clean it. Smelling good is important."

Trent laughed let out a raspy laugh, pleased to see the younger girl look so energetic again. It saddened him every time he saw the self-doubt creep into her. He trusted her and what she was trying to do for him. He wasn't naïve, he didn't automatically think that this would make Daria fall for him. That wasn't what this was all about for him anyway. Yes, he wanted to make something of himself and prove to everyone that he deserved the young genius, but more importantly, for the first time in his life, he had someone looking out for him, someone encouraging him, and someone believing in him.

He'd never had someone do those things. All he had wanted as a kid was for one of his parents to take an interest in him, to set boundaries and give instructions, but they just let him run free. They never judged, or criticized, or disciplined, or cared. So for the first time, he had someone trying to set boundaries on his behavior, someone trying to teach him how to take care of himself.

It was what he needed to finally step out of the teenage skin he'd been living in and move forward into his adult life. Whether or not he would win Daria at the end was not the point for him; she was the destination, but he was living for this journey.

"Come on," he addressed Quinn, nodding his head to the stairs. "They're gonna be like this for awhile."

"What happened?" she asked, following him up the stairs and into the living room, where they sat upon the sofa.

Trent shrugged, "same thing that happens every rehearsal. Max and Nick disagreed over the meaning of a lyric and Jesse failed to realize that no one else was playing anymore. The band's a failure."

Quinn frowned, "I was wondering what you're trying to say with Mystik Spiral?"

"Say?" Trent asked with his easygoing tone and a raise of the eyebrows.

"Well, yeah, I mean, when a writer writes, they have a message they're trying to get across. When a painter paints, they have a message they're trying to get across. What's your message? All I'm seeing is four guys in a band."

Trent's eyes once more moved to the tattoo upon his arm. He never said anything. His tattoo said that he got it out of a magazine, there was no message, no purpose, nothing more than he liked the way it looked. The same was true with Mystik Spiral – there was no message, no purpose, he just liked the way they sounded together. "I don't think we have one."

Quinn nodded, she had expected as much. "Okay, well clearly you guys have a talent for playing music, but until you start trying to say something, it's just noise."

"Don't you listen to pop music?" Trent asked wryly.

She shot him a glowering look, "the message there is that they like to make people dance. Life is fun and everything is exciting. Your music does not inspire me to dance, therefore it needs a message."

He smirked and nodded, "okay, drill sergeant."

"Excellent, that's the first part of your homework assignment."

"Whoa, homework?" Trent asked, a dazed look overtaking his features.

She laughed shortly, "Just think of it as a makeup for all of the assignments you didn't do in high school."

He wanted to argue that he knew that she hadn't been the best student herself, but let the point slide. "What's the second part?"

"I'm glad you asked!" She stated as she reached into her purse with a flourish and pulled out the New York Times paper for the day. Current events. Daria has always kept up on what's going on in the world. I remember being in kindergarten and watching her read the paper. Always. If you're going to hold your own in a conversation with her, you're going to have to become aware of the world around you."

He took the paper from her hand and stared at it gravely. This was a turning point, he could feel it. He had hidden away from the world for so long, not acknowledging the social and political struggles in his country and the wars and poverty in others. Some of his songs screamed "down to the man", but it was a sentiment only to him. It's what you said when you wanted to be rock n' roll; like a tribal tattoo was what you did when you wanted to look deep.

Long after the redhead, followed not too long by the rest of Spiral, left he house, Trent sat upon the couch and contemplated what he was doing. Find a meaning other than the bare minimum. Grab onto a purpose that was his own, not what he saw others do. Take responsibility for his life.

The real world was now calling, letting him know that he had a lot of catching up to do.

He was ready for it…kind of.


	7. Summer Plans

Jane Lane knew better than to start interfering in her friend's life without any solid evidence stronger than Quinn Morgendorffer's word. Daria had a temper and a sharp tongue and could hold a grudge like no other. She was not looking to be at the receiving end of any of those based off of Quinn's idea that Trent and Daria were meant to be together.

She conceded that Daria was still into the boy, but she hadn't any more evidence now than she did five years ago that Trent thought of Daria as anything more than another kid sister. She was not willing to hurt and humiliate her best friend because of a miscommunication between Trent and Quinn.

It was time to communicate with her favorite sibling and get to the bottom of this before she started doing anything foolish.

The black-haired girl was wearing a white wife-beater and red boxer shorts, and had her hair pulled back in a pony tail. Her red lipstick was faded off as it had been hours since the last application, making her lips an off-pink tone with a red border. Classes had been grueling that day and she hadn't wanted anything more when she got home than to get into a comfortable outfit and indulge in some unhealthy living. Taking a pint of "Cherry Garcia" ice cream out of the freezer and grabbing a spoon, she padded her way back to her room. If it weren't for the fact that she jogged almost everyday she was sure that she would have put on well more than the Freshman 15 everyone gained. She was lucky to weigh as much now as she did while in high school.

Collapsing on her bed, she rolled onto her back, opened up the ice cream and took a huge bite before fishing around for her phone that was on its charger on her bed. Dialing a familiar number she laid back against her pillows.

"Hello?" the familiar raspy voice answered. A wave of warmth washed over Jane at this sound. Trent meant the world to her. He was the one that had raised her and looked out for her the majority of her life. He was the one at her graduation, the one that remembered her birthday and bought her Christmas gifts, even if he did think it was a corporate holiday meant to capitalize on the masses. He looked out for her. She missed seeing him every day.

"Hey, there, Mr. Normal," she greeted him.

She could feel the smile as he simply said, "Janey."

"Did we go by any more malls today with Satan's Daughter?"

Trent coughed, a sound she could tell meant that he was not amused. She found it hard to believe that she could tell what each of his coughs meant, but living with someone for so long had acclimated her to each sound he made. "She's a good kid, Janey, you shouldn't be so hard on her."

Jane laughed, "oh, I spoke with Princess Grace the other day. She told me all about what you two are doing together. I had the hardest time believing it at first, but I think I can accept it."

There was a long pause. "I don't know what you're talking about," Trent finally answered.

"Of course not, big brother," Jane smirked, taking another healthy mouthful of frozen cherry goodness. "You know, you'd better be nice to me, we had planned to not come back to Lawndale this summer."

"Daria's not coming back this summer?" Trent asked, quicker than she was used to his reaction time being.

Her eyes widened in surprise and she choked on the ice cream she was eating as it went down the wrong pipe. The redhead was right! Heaven help the world, Quinn Morgendorffer was right. "Oh. My. GOD, TRENT!"

Realizing his folly, Trent started to sputter some protests to her conclusion, realizing that it was futile. Janey was clever and she was going to see through whatever excuses he made on why that was what came from his mouth when it came to his sister and her best friend not coming home for the summer.

With a sigh, he ran his hand through his hair and fell silent, waiting for her to start her tirade. His mind was spinning at the thought that this was all for nothing. He was trying to fix himself up and Daria wasn't even going to come back home to him.

"Are you serious about this?" Jane asked him once he was quiet. He was surprised to hear the serious tone out of his jokester younger sister. It occurred to him though that if everything fell apart, she would be stuck in the middle between him and Daria. He could understand her concern on his intentions.

"Yeah, Janey, I'm serious about it," he replied.

"How long?"

He thought about that. He still didn't know how long he'd liked Daria. He knew when he realized it, but not when it actually started. Alternapalooza? When she first started coming to Mystik Spiral concerts? When he first met her on the car ride to that cheerleader's party? After that? Since the day he was born? "A while, you know, whatever."

"A while, you know, whatever?" she asked back, infuriated at this answer. "Jesus, Trent, do you know how long it took her to be able to speak to you because she was afraid of appearing dumb in front of you, and now you're telling me you've been crushing on her the entire time?"

He loved that Janey spoke his language and had interpreted his response correctly, even if she was in the process of yelling at him because of it.

"Yeah, I know. Are you guys really not coming back this summer?"

"We'd decided against it," Jane agreed. "We like this apartment and don't want to give it up. I suppose I can work on changing Daria's mind. You'll owe me big though."

Trent sighed, it hadn't occurred to him that the longer Daria and Jane went to school in Boston the more they would start to consider it home. Daria had now spent almost as much time in Boston as she did in Lawndale. It was to be expected that she didn't consider Lawndale her home. Janey was used to having a nomadic family that considered Lawndale home base, but not their home. She had the same wanderlust in her that the rest of the family did. He didn't expect that she was going to settle in Boston permanently, but there was a good chance that she would want to spend less and less time in their family home.

"I appreciate it, Janey," he murmured.

The girl frowned as she took another bite of her ice cream. "You know, Trent, Daria's my best friend. I don't want her to get hurt. I know you're a good guy, but Daria…she's sensitive. It took her a long time to get over you. If this is just going to be a fling for you, than I don't want to convince her to walk into it."

Trent's expression soured a little that his little sister would think that he would mess with Daria's emotions like that. "Look, Janey, I am in love with Daria, I have been for a very long time. I know that she's so much better than me and she deserves a lot more than me, but I can't help how I feel. Believe me I've tried. I have to see this thing through."

"I don't want either of you to get hurt," Jane answered, surprised by Trent's sincerity. Besides his music, she had never heard him say he had to follow anything through. Mystik Spiral was Trent's one passion, and now he sounded more serious about her best friend than he had ever about his band.

He considered that, "I can't guarantee that. I'm not going to try for her with the intention of hurting her or getting hurt, but things happen."

"That's a ringing endorsement for my helping," Jane quipped, rolling her eyes. Her eyes widened as she heard the front door open. "Daria's home, gotta go! Love you, bye!" She hung up and jumped out of the bed with her ice cream in hand, determined that she was going to accomplish what she had failed at five years before.

Daria was not stupid, and there were few things that annoyed her more than when people treated her like she was. She did not spend the better part of her teen years in her room reading and educating herself to be treated like the village idiot, so why her best friend and her sister were suddenly acting like she was a doddering moron was beyond her.

Jane had been acting strangely towards her all afternoon. She stared at her friend from across the booth where they sat at a local pizza parlor that they had frequented almost daily since they arrived in Boston. The blue-eyed girl was devouring her pizza with a contemplative look on her face, leaving the bespectacled girl the opportunity to try to piece together some information. The car ride had been awkward with Jane talking incessantly about her brother and asking Daria's opinion on the subject.

With Quinn doing nearly the same thing every time she had talked to her on the phone the last week, Daria was on high alert that she was being set up for something. Part of her was horrified at the idea that Trent Lane might be dating her little sister and everyone was just trying to see how Daria would handle the news. She didn't think she could if that was the case. She'd understood Trent's attraction to Monique and had accepted that he needed a daring and alternative girlfriend, but if he fell for her fashion-fiend little sister, Daria's mind would explode.

"So, I've been thinking about this summer," Jane finally ventured as she finished her slice of pizza and reached for another off of the large pie that they were splitting.

Daria's eyes narrowed, "What about it?"

"Well, I know that we had agreed to not go back to Lawndale this summer, but then I started thinking that your 21st birthday was this summer and how cool it would be to celebrate that back home."

The brunette's eyes narrowed further, "why would I want to celebrate my birthday at home with my family? The nicest thing about Boston is how far away it is from Helen and Jake."

"Come on, Daria, think about it! We spent the better part of our teenage years going into the Zon to watch my brother play and not being able to drink to make it better. How much fun would it be to make your first legal drink at the same club that we spent so much time in?"

"Like a birthday party?"

"Yes!"

"At the Zon?"

"Yes!"

"Where we'll be drinking heavily?"

"Yes!"

"No." Daria flatly rejected the idea, taking another bite of her slice of pizza and looking at her best friend, trying to figure out what exactly she was up to.

"Oh, come on, Daria," Jane wheedled, "It'll be fun! We'll make sure the Spiral has a gig that night and we'll go down and heckle them like we used to, except this time booze will be involved!"

Daria frowned, "I think the idea of getting drunk would be more fun if you and I hadn't started drinking together years ago. Besides, you know I don't like being drunk in public. People sketch me out enough without me not having full control of my mind."

Jane decided to switch tactics a little, "Look, you tried for the past two summers to tell your parents that you're not coming home and that you have no interest in spending time lounging around Lawndale. You failed both times because your mom outmaneuvered you. You've been trying to come up with a way to tell your folks that you're not coming back home this summer. You know from past experience that they're not going to take it well, especially because of your birthday. They're going to try to guilt you into coming and spending the whole summer with them."

"What's your point, Lane?"

"My point is that I'm offering you a great leveraging tool. Tell your mom that you're not coming home this summer. Let her know that we like the apartment, that we have jobs, that we're happy here and have no desire to return to that hellhole. She's going to freak out, she's going to bribe you, she's going to berate you, and she's going to make you feel like the scum of the Earth."

Daria sighed, knowing that this was true. When she was younger, she had been able to stand up to her mother better, but she found as she got older and understood her mother better, it got harder to withstand the guilt trips. Either she was getting old or Helen was getting better.

"So, what I'm proposing is a compromise. Let her know that you'll come back for a week around your birthday. That'll make her happy, we'll get to keep the apartment, and won't have to be in that place for any longer than we have to be."

"A week seems longer than we have to be," Daria pointed out, not trusting her friend at all in this moment.

Jane shrugged, "if we say just for your birthday, it'll make her unhappy. A week will give you two plenty of time to get on each other's nerves and for her to start nagging you about your lifestyle and your lack of motivation. We'll visit the old haunts, lounge around and eat your parents food, catch up with our siblings, and get the hell out of there without anyone minding our extremely short visit."

As much as the brunette didn't want to admit it, her friend's suggestion made sense. Still, she knew that Jane didn't want to go back to Lawndale anymore than she did. They had discussed ad nauseum their absolute refusal to go back there this summer, now her friend was trying to get her back there for some reason.

"I'll take your silence as consent. Great!" Jane exclaimed with a large smile. "I'll make sure that Trent knows to request to play on your birthday."

Daria's frown deepened. There was that name again.

"We'll get Quinn to DD for us so we can get you totally trashed!"

And there was the other name. Those two names kept showing up in conversations together. Quinn had started it less than a week ago when she mentioned that she had run into Trent, and since then she'd heard those names strung together.

"Is there something going on between Trent and Quinn?" Daria finally asked, putting her pizza down and staring at her best friend.

For the second time that day Jane choked on her food, grabbing her soda and gulping it down to clear her throat. "Ew, god no!" Jane finally choked out, mimicking the red head in question's own reaction to the suggestion the day before.

"I can handle it if there is, I just want to know so I'm not surprised by it when we go home."

Jane smirked, knowing there was no way that her friend would handle it if Trent started dating Quinn. The thought was so twisted and wrong that Jane knew she wouldn't be able to handle it if it were true, and it wouldn't be like her sibling was suddenly dating her crush. "Can you imagine that relationship? Trent taking Quinn to dates at McGrundy's? Her fishing for compliments and insisting that he take her to Chez Pierre? He'd forget every anniversary, never notice her new shoes, and never buy her enough 'Just Because' presents. Quinn's too much of a material girl for my brother, and he's way too much of a laid back guy to put up with her high maintenance antics."

Daria had to admit, the relationship would be short lived at best if they ever did get together. While she saw the best in both people, she didn't think that they would be compatible in the least. She knew that Trent would never be the kind of guy that her sister needed. It didn't mean that he was a bad boyfriend or that her sister would be a bad girlfriend, they were just looking for different things in relationships.

"Your right, they'd never work out," Daria agreed.

"Nope," Jane answered, picking up her pizza and continuing her eating. "My brother needs a girl that gets him. Who knows that even if he doesn't notice her new haircut, it doesn't mean he doesn't love her."

"Quinn needs a guy that does notice her efforts," Daria replied, trying to keep down the blush that was rushing to her cheeks at the thought of being the girl that Trent needed. She always felt that she had understood Trent, and she knew that he felt the same way about her. It had been a long time since she'd thought it, but she knew that she could be the girl that Trent needed.

"So about Lawndale…" Jane hinted.

Daria nodded, "I'll talk with my mom this evening. She should go for your compromise."

Jane felt a sense of self-satisfaction, having noticed the redness to Daria's cheeks and recognizing it from years of Daria's crush on Trent. She loved when a good plan came together.


	8. A Mother's Concern

Helen sat down from Quinn at the kitchen table as the young girl sat before the black day planner and made notes for the next couple days of her and Trent's lives. The lawyer was pleased to see her youngest child doing something other than working in that restaurant and spending all of her time at the mall. She wasn't sure that taking over Trent Lane's life was really the answer to Quinn's need for purpose in life, but it was nice to see her passionate about something. Helen had always found Trent to be a nice young man, just a little too rough around the edges for her eldest child.

Daria was a grown up now though and Trent was beginning to look increasingly like an adult – or as much of an adult as the Lane's could produce. She was beginning to think that Trent might be a good match for her eldest child, and judging by her youngest daughter's dedication to the cause, she had to assume that she wasn't the only one that finally saw what Jane had been hinting at for half a decade.

Helen had been quite put off by Trent's arrival on their doorstep almost a week before, but she had also noticed how torn up he was without his sister and Daria around. He was in earnest when he had begged her to let him see Daria, that he needed to let her know how he felt.

It was that sincerity and his obvious depression at the two women he cared about the most being gone that caused Helen to allow him to stay the night in their home and not call the cops on him for showing up at that hour in the state he was in. It almost broke her heart to hear how desperately he begged to see Daria, how stricken he had looked when she said that he couldn't see the genius. There was no doubt in her mind that Trent's feelings for Daria were real and newly realized.

"Quinn, I just got off the phone with Daria," Helen began the conversation.

Immediately the red-head looked up at the mention of one of the people in her plan.

"She's concerned that you're scheming against her," Helen informed the girl, causing Quinn to raise her eyebrows in surprise. "It seems that you and Jane have been behaving very strangely the last few days."

Quinn smiled, "I'm glad to hear that Jane's actually helping me. I was afraid that she'd chicken out."

"Jane is helping you set her brother up with your sister?" Helen asked skeptically. She still wasn't completely sold on this being a great idea, but she felt a little better that Jane was on board with this. As much as she loved her own daughter, she didn't trust her judgment when it came to interfering in Daria's life.

Daria was a very reserved person and she wasn't interested in dating without a relationship like Quinn was. Quinn was a social butterfly and Helen had barely worried about her or whom she went out with during her high school years. Daria was different. Daria didn't let a lot of people in, and when she did, she became deeply attached to them. Daria stood a bigger chance of getting hurt or in trouble when it came to boys than Quinn did.

Helen still felt the need to look after Daria because of this. She didn't think that Quinn fully understood how different she and Daria were when it came to dating. Knowing that Jane, someone that Daria had let into her world and that she trusted implicitly, was working with Quinn on this made Helen more assured that her eldest daughter wasn't going to be set up for complete failure.

"Of course," Quinn responded to her mom with a brilliant smile. "Jane wants her brother and her best friend to be happy just as much as I do, and she's perfectly situated to put Daria on the right path."

"Well, you'll be happy to know that I convinced your sister to spend a week with us this summer. She and Jane had planned on not coming back at all, if you can believe that!"

Quinn smirked, certain that Jane had more of a hand in convincing Daria to visit for a week this summer than Helen had. She knew that her sister was planning on not coming home this summer, like she had every other summer. Quinn hadn't worried too much on that detail since Helen had been able to guilt her daughter into spending the time with her family. It was nice to hear though that she would definitely be back in Lawndale, even if only for a short period of time.

"You know she tries to get out of it every summer; don't you think that she had planned for this and had determined a week compromise before she got you on the phone? You got worked, mom. Instead of the whole summer, you get to see her for a week and you probably offered her a hefty bribe as well. What's she getting out of you?"

Helen's expression suddenly soured as she realized her youngest child was likely correct. It must have been too long since she had to go head-to-head with Daria over something for her to have fallen for such an obvious ploy. And she had to give her daughter $200 to help pay for the lost work wages now.

She sighed, "well, at least we'll get to see her for her birthday."

Quinn's eyes lit up, "Jane is a genius! Birthday party, Daria, Trent, some carefully planned encounters and those two will be together by morning! God, I love that girl!"

Helen felt worry course through her as she realized that Quinn was entirely serious about playing matchmaker. "Quinn, honey, don't you think that it would be best to let Daria…"

"Can't talk now, mom, it's gonna be epic! Gotta plan! I'll be at Trent's!" The redhead interrupted as she grabbed the planner, stood up and rushed out of the dining room. Seconds later Helen heard the front door slam shut as her daughter exited the house.

She didn't want to be worried about either of her daughters, they were adults now after all. Quinn was working hard and had matured a lot over the last few years. Yes, Helen hated that she didn't go to college and she pressured her youngest child about this choice a lot, but on most days, Helen was very proud of Quinn. She was an independent woman that knew what she wanted and was learning to see the best in people outside of what they wore or what music they listened to.

Then there was Daria. Daria had been living on her own for a long time now, she worked and went to school. Helen knew that Daria had a couple of boyfriends in that time, she'd even brought one back to meet them for her birthday last year. Helen had liked that boy even more than she had liked Tom.

His name was Jason and Daria had met him through Jane. He was a sculptor at BFAC and had been working with Jane on a project for class. He and Daria had hit it off almost immediately and had dated for about seven months. It had ended on Daria's terms, as all of her relationships did. Daria bailed before she could get hurt.

Helen couldn't help but worry that this thing with Trent wouldn't end with out one of her daughters being hurt.

Quinn let herself into Casa Lane without bothering to knock. She had been spending so much time there over the last week that it really felt like her second home.

Following the sound of the acoustic guitar coming from upstairs, Quinn made her way into Trent's bedroom where she found the dark-haired musician lying on his bed playing his guitar and watching the TV as it played the news on mute with closed captioning. For a moment, she watched him as he read the captions and absorbed the information about the world around him. His face remained impassive as ever, but she could tell that the information about the war going on disturbed him.

"Wouldn't it be easier to read a newspaper than television?" she asked him with a hint of amusement in her voice.

"Nah," Trent drawled, not showing any surprise at the girl standing in his doorway. He gestured for her to come in and smiled as she sat on the bed next to him and focused her attention on the television. "I like the pictures, helps me get an idea of what's going on. The newspaper has too many words."

Quinn's lips twitched into a smile. "Wouldn't it be easier with sound, then?"

"Nah," the musician said again, his own smile on his lips. "The anchor people annoy me. They're just actors switching from happy to sad at the turn of a story. They don't care about what they're saying. They're just reading a script and trying to sell us on how we should feel. They make news not real. Without having to hear them, I can actually take in what's going on. Besides, gives me time to practice."

They watched the segment in companionable quiet while Trent continued to play a melody on his guitar until the commercials came on.

"Daria and Jane are coming home for a week this summer, courtesy of your little sister, I'm imagining," Quinn informed him as he turned his attention away from the television as the barrage of advertisements came on.

Trent's smile returned, "Janey came through. I knew she would. A week, it doesn't seem like that long."

Quinn shrugged, "it'll be enough time. Jane planned it for Daria's 21st birthday. We'll need to do something special for her, something that will give you two alone time."

It amazed Trent that Daria was turning 21. He knew that it shouldn't surprise him. Jane had turned 21 months before. She had sent him a stack of photos in the mail chronicling her exploits on her 21st birthday. Since Daria couldn't go out drinking with her, the party had started at a liquor store where Jane purchased her first bottle of alcohol legally. They'd gone back to their apartment for pre-drinking, then they went with several of their friends to a restaurant where Jane continued her drinking. He had laughed when he saw the pictures of Jane wrapped around an obviously slightly drunk Daria who still managed to look completely annoyed in each photo. It had surprised him to see that Daria not only drank, but went out in public while drunk. Jane had told him that it had taken a lot of begging and bribing for her to do so, and that while Daria didn't mind the underage drinking thing, she wasn't such a fan of being around a lot of people while drunk. That part didn't surprise Trent. Daria didn't like being around a lot of people sober.

They had dropped Daria and some other of their under 21 friends off at the apartment while the legal drinkers went out and hit up a few clubs. Then, the party had continued back at the apartment when Jane got home. The final photos had been of Jane in the bathroom throwing up with a nauseous looking Daria holding her friend's hair back and Jane flipping off the camera person. Then the final picture was of Jane passed out on the floor of the bathroom and Daria looking at her friend in bewilderment on what to do with her now.

It had saddened Trent that he hadn't been able to make it up to Boston for that evening. Mystik Spiral had a gig that night, and while he normally wouldn't have minded walking out on them, he had been under a lot of pressure to perform better since Max and Nick had made it clear that they were ready to call it quits if he didn't get his act together.

He would be there for Daria's 21st birthday though. He would be there to hold her hair back if she reached the point that Jane did on her birthday. He wanted to be the one in the bathroom with her as she swore she'd never drink again as she flipped off the camera person.

"Maybe I should write her a song," Trent mused quietly.

Quinn scoffed and shook her head. "God no, really? I thought I told you that you and easy listening power ballads would be creepy and wrong. Besides, what are you going to do, perform it in public and declare your undying love for her in front of a million strangers? I would love that sort of thing, Daria would be humiliated by it. She doesn't like a lot of people looking at her, you know that. Quickest way to get her to run or turn on you is to put her in the spotlight when she's not expecting it."

Trent looked at the girl in surprise. Her tone and approach were different, but she was a lot like her sister when it came to brutal honesty. He figured they got it from their mother, she seemed like the kind of woman that said what was on her mind without thinking about feelings. He appreciated the honesty, though he had to admit that he would prefer some sugar-coating in the approach from time to time.

"What are you thinking then?" he asked her, strumming at the guitar again as the commercials ended and the news resumed once more.

"I'm not…yet. Give me some time, I'll come up with the perfect thing for you to do for her birthday. I swear, by the time she goes back to Boston, you two will be a couple."

Silence fell between the two of them again as they lounged on his bed and watched the muted television. They continued that way well into the night with Trent playing his guitar and writing down music ideas in a journal while Quinn planned in her organizer more ideas she had to transform the musician and more ideas for her sister's birthday.

Neither of them was sure when it happened, but they had found a peaceful friendship between them where they were just content in the other's presence and felt comfortable letting their guard down. The hours slipped away from them without the need to fill in the silence with words. Trent didn't even realize how late it was until he noticed that the red head had fallen asleep on his bed.

He smiled and tucked her in under his covers, flipping off the still silent TV, grabbing his guitar and heading downstairs to sleep on the couch. He only hoped her mother didn't freak out when she realized that Quinn didn't come home that night.


	9. Katherine & Bianca

"There's no way in hell," Jane stated flatly on the phone while standing in her bedroom and staring into the full length mirror before her. She had recently added red streaks into her dark black hair and was trying to determine if she liked the look.

It had taken a lot of work to get isolated strands of blonde hair in her hair and then get the red to set.

Daria had freaked out at the sight of peroxide and hair dye on their kitchen table. It had taken about twenty minutes of soothing voiced talking on Jane's part to calm her friend down enough to convince her that she had no intention of ever making her touch her hair again.

A friend from art school came over to fix her hair. A girl that had dyed her own hair enough times to do it in her sleep. Daria had sat at the table with them while they did it and watched as the other girl successfully put the correct color in the correct places in her hair. Daria had always been insecure about other people in her friends life, and Jane knew that, but she had taken well to someone else being able to do her friend's hair.

Jane had to admit that over the last couple of years Daria had been coming out of her insecure social shell. She was able to sit with Jane and her art school friends and hold her own in the conversation without coming off as possessive and jealous. It was refreshing to have her best friend become so comfortable with herself that she was able to simply be herself in other people's company.

It had taken Jane a long time to convince Daria that she liked hanging out with her. It wasn't that Jane couldn't find other people to hang out with, especially now that she was in art school surrounded by a lot of people with the same interests. She just generally liked hanging out with Daria and interacting with her.

Once Daria started seeing Jane being around other people and then seeing Jane still inviting her along, and not out of pity, but out of actual want for her company, Daria had started coming out of her shell. She was still awkward, still judgmental, and had still burned quite a few of Jane's friends, but she was better and a hell of a lot more fun than she had been in their teen years, simply because she was starting to become willing to let other people see that fun side of herself.

So, to have this redhead on the phone – someone that had made her best friend's life miserable for years – telling her that she needed to essentially strip her friend of her very identity, was unacceptable to Jane.

"You have to, Jane," Quinn sighed with an unmistakable roll of her eyes.

"You know, you keep saying that," Jane reminded her wryly, while pulling a chunk of red hair out to observe it better. She liked the way the almost burgundy locks complimented her dark overshirt. She made the decision that this was a good look for her. It wasn't as ambitious as tiger striping, but it had just the flair to get her noticed and make her head a conversation piece.

"And you keep helping," Quinn shot back. "Don't think that I don't know that you pulled off that conversation between Daria and my mom. I'm not stupid, Jane, I know the work of a relationship meddler when I see one. Her birthday? Freaking priceless!"

Jane heavily sighed and bowed her head before bending down to put on her black Diva Darcie Black and Silver Armor Lamper Doc Marten's over the red tights she was currently sporting to match her hair. "Quinn, I don't want to return to Lawndale anymore than Daria does. It was more than my pleasure to come up with a compromise that got us in and out of that hellhole as quickly as we could."

"But come on!" Quinn exclaimed, "her birthday? I couldn't have planned it better myself! I'm thinking a party, a sort of mild get together with some friends, something classy that Daria…"

"We're going to the Zon, I want Spiral to play. I already talked Daria into that much," Jane cut the girl off, rolling her own eyes at the thought of a snooty wine tasting or mimosa's with friends.

Quinn's eyes widened. "That DIVE bar?"

"The one and only," Jane agreed. "Daria and I watched Mystik Spiral play there so many times as teenagers, so I managed to convince her that it would be entertaining to watch them and drink at the same time. She agreed that it would only improve their sound."

Jane contemplated the outfit she was wearing as she stood in front of the mirror awaiting Quinn's response. She was wearing a basic black short pleated skirt and a low cut, scoop necked black tank top with a _Dias de los Muertos_ cartoon-esque red skull on it and a red long-sleeved overshirt that was only a shade off of the skull. Matched with her combat boots and striped hair and Bettie Page like bangs, Jane had to admit that she had grown into her look. It had taken a while to move on from the shorts and v-necked t-shirts, but once she started branching out, she had discovered her body to be one of the ultimate canvases to express her style. Her time in college had taught her to appreciate fashion and personal expression in clothing.

And while she knew that what people wore was a way of defining themself, what the fashion fiend on the other end of the phone line was proposing was incomprehensible to the artist.

Quinn was slow in responding to the confirmation that she and Daria wished to celebrate the shorter girl's final landmark birthday before she could run for president at a disgusting little bar that Quinn would not normally be seen in.

"Trent plays there regularly, right?" Quinn finally asked.

"It's there or at McGrundy's. They're the only two places in town that will still book the Spiral, though I think McGrundy's has been added to the list of places that will only book Trent and the boys if not other band is interested in playing. Mystik Spiral doesn't exactly draw large crowds."

"They're missing a good street team," Quinn agreed quickly, making the older girl quirk an eyebrow before she grabbed her back pack and started heading out of the apartment. She had class in half an hour and could already feel that she was going to be late in her cross-town commute.

Jane quickly waved goodbye to Daria, who was lying upside down on the couch with her feet over the back and her head almost touching the ground while she was reading a large English Lit. textbook. The brunette had her glasses off so that she could focus her eyes better while she read, and Jane swallowed hard as she noticed them lying on the floor about a foot from Daria's head. Her friend appeared deeply absorbed in the book that she was reading, which often happened when Daria felt at ease in her surroundings and able to let herself relax. Jane had often had to call her attention many times before Daria would slip out of the fictional world that she had drifted into.

Knowing that she was going to hate herself for this, but not being able to help herself, Jane redirected her path and walked over to her friend, feeling her gut clench as she took the final step and heard the tell tale crunch of the glasses breaking under her combat boots.

Immediately she saw her friend's eyes widen in surprise and horror at the sound and she did her best to look as horrified. "Oh, my god, I've got to go, I think I broke Daria's glasses," Jane stuttered into the phone, before she hung up and tossed it aside. "Oh no, I'm sorry amiga!"

She did her best to look sympathetic while knowing that it was useless to fake any expression since Daria couldn't see it anyway.

Carefully, Daria righted herself on the couch and stared at the fuzzy shape she took to be her best friend. "Fuck!" Daria swore under her breath. "It's not your fault, I shouldn't have left them on the ground like that, you were on the phone, you just didn't see them…fuck!"

Jane swallowed nervously and decided to go with that. "Yeah, I was talking with a friend about the Spiral and I guess I didn't see them…I'm so sorry! Do you have a back up pair?"

Daria shook her head, her expression deepening into its despair. "No, that was my back up pair. They stopped making the large frame like that. The last time I went to the optometrist, I had to have them take the last two pairs I'd gotten and update the prescription in the frame because nothing looked right."

"What are you going to do?" Jane asked, sitting next to her friend on the couch and doing her best to look worried.

Daria thought for a second before she sighed and shook her head. "In the medicine cabinet is a contact lens case, can you go get it for me?"

Quickly Jane agreed and hurried to the shared bathroom, where she rummaged in the medicine cabinet for the telltale green and white contact case. Rushing, she headed back into the living room, not being able to help the slight smile that crossed her lips as she accidentally stepped on the destroyed glasses again, ensuring that they would be useless and irreparable.

Daria looked less than amused at this second breaking of her beloved glasses. "I'm sorry!" Jane sputtered again holding up one hand defensively as she ushered the lens case into Daria's hands.

Advancements in contact lenses had made it so that Daria could live with her contacts in without wanting to claw her eyes out. They didn't itch nearly as much anymore and only slightly turned her eyes bloodshot. She still preferred to wear her glasses and was slightly annoyed at having to live with these contacts until she could get a new pair of glasses, which she knew she would never be able to find a pair to perfectly replace the ones that had tragically lost their life under the sole of Jane's high healed Doc Marten.

Trying not to cry at the loss of her last beloved pair of large, round framed glasses, Daria took the lens case with a shaky hand and with highly unskilled fingers maneuvered the soft lenses into her eyes. She had to really stifle the tears as the world regained its focus and she saw the brutalized corpse of her belated glasses. "It's too tragic, Jane, please remove them from the room," Daria deadpanned, gesturing towards the shattered and twisted plastic.

Jane had learned to read her friend well enough over the years and could tell that while the line was delivered with a straight face, Daria was more than serious about how hurt she was by the loss. Deciding that class was a loss for the day, Jane dropped her backpack on the ground and bent down to pick up the broken glasses, depositing them in the trash in the nearby kitchen.

Daria, in the meantime, had taken out her cell phone and was calling her local optometrist to get an emergency appointment. She was entirely grateful that she was sill on her mother's insurance plan for the next couple of years as she would never have been able to afford the appointment with her job as a file clerk at a nearby law office. She had no interest in law really, but the job was the least public related one she could find outside of the mortician that her high school career aptitude test said she should strive for.

Nervously, Jane stood in the living room, awaiting to hear of how quickly Daria could get in to get a new pair. She knew from living with her friend that it would take a couple of weeks even if she got in there today. That would mean that Daria had to either wear her contact lenses or she would have to go blind for the next couple of weeks.

Jane understood Quinn's reasoning on this and why she had it done so far away from Daria's birthday and her reunion with Trent. Daria wa used to hiding herself behind the large frames. The time that she had not done so in high school had brought about a lot of positive attention that Daria wasn't used to receiving.

Quinn wanted to force her sister to get used to that. Force her to face the world without the large, uninviting barricade that she put over her face; and force her to admit that she liked when other people noticed her in a positive way.

Two weeks without the glasses would put Daria into several positions where she had to face people without that safety net to hide herself behind. She would either choose in two weeks to wear a different pair of glasses, smaller, trendier ones since she would never be able to find an outdated pair like the ones Jane had just destroyed, or she would choose to continue to wear the contacts. Either way, she would be forced to be comfortable with this change in her appearance before she had to face Trent again.

Jane understood it, but she didn't like it.

Daria hung up the phone and looked at her friend. "They can fit me in at three today. Will you go with me?"

Jane thought about the other art classes that she had that day before she sighed and nodded. "Yeah, you know I'll be there for you. Just let me call a couple of people so they can take notes and let me know what I missed."

Daria nodded, looking like a miserable, broken doll sitting on the couch as she mourned the loss of her glasses. Jane felt badly, knowing the her friend had made a large component of her identity those glasses. At the same time, she realized that Quinn's tough love strategy might actually be right. Daria needed to stop hiding herself and learn to accept the compliments and criticism of her peers based on her actual merit, not on her oversized glasses and clothes.

Hating to admit that the redhead was right, Jane turned and dialed a friend's number as she walked back into her room. Quickly she explained the situation, omitting her intentional breakage of her friend's glasses, and requested that she take notes for her that day in their shared classes.

Once she received the confirmation, Jane called back the devilish red-haired girl that had instigated this entire ordeal.

"Oh my God!" Quinn exclaimed as her way of answering the phone. "I can't believe how quickly you work! One minute you're telling me that you're not going to do this one itty bitty favor for me and the next minute, my sisters outdated glasses are no more. I've got to hand it to you Jane, you know how to get stuff done."

Jane frowned and sat on her grey comforter, staring down at the faux alligator pattern of her Doc Martens. "I saw an opening and I took it. I don't want to discuss it further."

Quinn frowned, but relented. "I wish I could go with Daria to pick out the new frames!"

"Email me what you think will work. I'm going with her today to help her pick out a new pair."

"Jane, you're a lifesaver!" Quinn exclaimed as she bolted up the stairs of her house and into her room and sliding into the desk chair. Jane could hear the furious typing on the keyboard and had to smile as the rhythmic clatter reminded her of Daria's novel and short story writing. She'd gotten used to the familiar sound of keys being depressed in rapid succession and took great comfort in the sound.

"Daria would disagree," Jane pointed out to the younger girl as she listened to the furious keystrokes.

Quinn made a sound of mock aggravation, "Daria doesn't know what's best for her! Can you believe she used to be the fashion editor for the newspaper at Highland High School. It's so aggravating to know that my sister knows how to dress and just refused to do so!"

"Yes, Bianca; Katherine's refusal to marry is upsetting for us all. Her sharp tongue and wit are distressing for those of us who care of her the most." Jane sighed and rubbed her eyes, hating herself for allowing Quinn to use her like this. She wasn't an adolescent male, she had no idea why Quinn's boisterous personality caused her to do stupid things.

"Huh?" Quinn responded, only half listening as she began to copy images into an email for Jane to use as reference.

"Shakespeare," Jane informed her. "Taming of the Shrew, I think you'd like it."

Quinn made a quick note of the suggestion, and sent the email file minutes later. "I've sent you the email, my top choices are first followed by my least favorites. We want something that will work with Daria's eye and hair color. Don't go Sally Jesse Raphael with her, she doesn't have the wardrobe or the personality to pull off a brightly colored frame. Keep it simple and clean, something that will look good with a variety of outfits. Most importantly, do not let her pick the largest, ugliest frame in the place!"

Jane frowned, but agreed. The two cohorts said their goodbyes and began to plan separately for the upcoming months.

Daria in the meantime sat in the living room, her impending sense of doom deepened by this latest turn in her life.


	10. Social Networking

Mystik Spiral was definitely the key to solving the puzzle of Trent Lane's life, Quinn determined as she sat through yet another painful rehearsal. Taking Jane's advice, she had invested in a pair of silicon earplugs to block out the overwhelmingly loud sound of a rock band with little concept of harmony, though she had to admit, they were getting better.

Trent had spent his entire adult life chasing after the dream of being a musician with these other three men. They played their instruments, they showed up at gigs, and they dreamt big, but none of them had the ambition to follow through and make their lofty dreams a reality.

They assumed that playing shows together would eventually help them break big, but until they spent at least three times as much time promoting their shows as they did playing them they would never reach the big times. None of them had shown the passion or drive for pounding the pavement and handing out fliers, they didn't have any band paraphernalia that they could sell at their shows to further their promotion, they didn't even have a freaking website!

She wasn't a graphic designer, so she had asked Jane to come up with some promotional designs. Jane had tried to worm out of it citing her mountain of homework and design work she already had to do, but had eventually caved in when faced with Quinn's overbearing pleading. Quinn knew that Jane was just as eager to help Trent in any way that she was, so she wasn't surprised at all that despite how busy Jane claimed to be, she would still drop everything for him.

While Quinn waited for the designs to be finished, she researched the best way to promote this band. The Spiral was running on a severely limited budget, and while Quinn would love to keep fronting Trent on paying for stuff, she had her own expenses and didn't make nearly enough waitressing to be the breadwinner for a band she wasn't even in.

The cheapest items were bumper stickers and buttons; buttons definitely being the cheaper of the two. She could afford to get a couple of hundred buttons made, she could afford to create a few hundred fliers to advertise their next show – after that, they were on their own.

She knew from talking to Trent that McGrundy's and the Zon didn't pay them that much. A little more than $50 per person in the band per gig. Not enough to buy even a couple days worth of food, let alone live off of. She also knew that their pay was based off of how many people came into the bar that night. Spiral was not packing either bar, and so they were paid accordingly.

Quinn was hoping to change that. She still didn't know much about rock music, but she did believe that these boys had potential. That's all it took really. Potential, and some killer advertising to get the name out into the mainstream. She couldn't do much to capitalize on their potential, but she could use her charm and her vast number of acquaintances to market a band that she believed in.

And she did believe in Trent and the other guys.

She wasn't sure when it happened, but she had definitely taken on two different projects when it came to Trent Lane. On the one hand, she was trying to get him in a relationship with her sister. On the other, she was trying to get his band to be a national, if not international, success.

Yes, she still believed that helping his band would give him the self-esteem needed to court Daria, but she was fairly sure that they would end up together even if she just sat back and watched at this point. Trent was so convinced that the small changes she had made for him so far were going to be enough to draw Daria to him, and now she had Jane pushing her sister in that direction. Really, she could bow out now and just watch the show.

Yet, she didn't want to. She was enjoying herself too much and was now investing herself fully to this cause.

So, she researched advertising. Not just what to advertise on, but the best way to get a brand, or band, into the minds of your core audience. For bands, the street team was essential. She needed to find people who believed enough in Mystik Spiral and wanted to hear their sound enough that they would be willing to pass out fliers to their friends and spread the word about the band. In exchange, Quinn could offer the team free access to the show, or to meet the band in person, or give them limited edition merchandise.

That last one was going to have to wait. They didn't have any merchandise, let alone limited edition merchandise.

Fortunately, several of Quinn's high school suitors were still townies like herself. A couple of quick phone calls had ensured that there would be dozens of people that weren't normally at Mystik Spiral concerts there the next night. If she could get a couple of those guys to really like the band and want to see them again, not just want to see her again, then she would have her street team.

That would be up to the band though. She could get the bodies into the venue, but it would be up to the band to keep them there. Fortunately, Trent's late night songwriting sessions were actually going well. Watching the news and learning about the world around him outside of Lawndale was inspiring the musician to write edgier, more controversial lyrics. Matched with Jesse's songwriting abilities that were getting inspired by Trent's revived interest in his band, they were starting to pull out interesting music with thought-provoking lyrics and a metal sound that pounded into your skull.

She hadn't heard Max or Nick talk about quitting in the last week or so.

Fueled by their band mates sudden change in styles and their obvious new drive to better the band, the drummer and the guitarist had recommitted themselves silently to the band as well. They played better and fought less with each other, and all because of her involvement in Trent's life.

Quinn felt comfortable at the band rehearsals now. She didn't feel like she was being judged by them anymore, and she was pretty sure Trent had talked with them about what she was doing for them. It had surprised her when Nick had called her their manager. She hadn't thought of herself as a manager of anything. She was Trent's drill sergeant, she hadn't thought of it as being in charge of the band.

Yet, she was now.

Without any of them saying anything about it, it had been agreed that this new attitude was stemming from the efforts that the redhead that sat on the stairs was making, so she was in charge. They would do what she said, show up when she wanted them to, wear what she suggested, and absorb all of the teachings she could give. It wasn't lost on them that their sound wasn't her normal genre of music, but that didn't matter. They knew how to play together, they had other musicians they could ask for advice from, but they didn't have any other person that had believed in them like she did.

Quinn had spent a good portion of her previous evening setting them up a band page on a social networking site. Then, she set up each band member a page on the same social networking site. The internet was definitely the quickest way to stay in contact with your fans and to keep them updated on the latest shows, the newest merchandise, to give them clips of new songs to get them interested in showing up to the shows. It would be essential that each band member learn how to use this new tool to keep in communication with their fans.

She wasn't looking forward to it, but she was going to sit down and teach each of them how to do it. She hadn't seen a computer in the Lane household, so she had brought her laptop and was prepared to go through the grueling task of teaching them how to upload photos, to make posts, to switch between being an administrator of their band page and their own personal pages.

Once they got it though, they would be one step closer to having a well-marketed band.

They still needed the street team, but Quinn felt confident that she was going to make this band play packed venues soon enough. When they did, Quinn knew that Trent's confidence would sore, that he would start to see himself as something more than a stagnant slacker that couldn't do anything right.

She didn't think that he was lazy, she didn't think that any of them were.

She just thought that they were severely unmotivated to try any harder than they had to. Clearly, someone was doing the bare minimum by continuing to get them shows. They showed up and had rehearsals. They showed up at their shows. If they were lazy, they wouldn't have even formed a band. They would sit in the basement watching television and eating junk food all day.

They just didn't know how to reach for more.

Quinn did not grow up in a family where the minimum was ever good enough, though Daria often tried to change that family ambition. Her parents, though mostly her mother, were highly successful. Quinn excelled at her popularity and style, taking it to an art form. While most people had tried to be well-liked in school, Quinn had stepped it up to be the most liked. She was the prom queen, the homecoming queen, and generally the poster child for the successful teenage girl. Daria had rejected Quinn's route, but had excelled at her education, her lack of extracurricular activities being the only thing that didn't make her the valedictorian for her class. Daria took being book smart to an art form.

Nothing important was half-assed to a Morgendorffer.

Anything that wasn't deemed important definitely was half-assed.

Quinn found her new job as manager of a band to be extremely important, and so, she did not have it in her to do a mediocre job at it. It just wasn't how she was raised. She raised to be the best, to climb to the top and to crush anyone that stood in her way.

She almost felt badly for this band of self-proclaimed slackers. They had given her control of their future and now they were going to work like they had never had to before.

Daria sat in front of her laptop and frowned as she saw a message inviting her to join a social networking site. Quinn had invited her.

Daria had avoided social networking like she had avoided all things social in her life. It was another popularity game that people played, trying to boost their friend counts with impersonal relationships with acquaintances they would rather not see or talk to. Plus whenever she asked what the point of it was, people had told her it was to stay in touch with people she knew from school that she didn't get to see anymore. The only person from school that she had wanted to stay in touch with was Jane, and she spoke with her several times a day, on account of that whole living together thing. Did she really want to be bombarded with the depth of Brittany and Kevin's every thought? Did she really want to see Upchuck's attempts to hit on anything in the cyber-world?

Still, she was semi-amused to see that her sister wanted to keep up with her online. She and Quinn talked regularly enough on the phone, so Daria wasn't sure what the point would be of following each other's exploits via a computer as well. She supposed that Quinn would like it because she could post pictures of herself on it and then reap in all of the compliments from her adoring fans, but Daria hated having her picture taken and she didn't have that legion of men and women that swooned when she spoke.

She clicked on the email and opened it to find out what her sister could possibly be thinking. Her frown deepened when she saw that Quinn was inviting her because she had made Mystik Spiral a page and they needed all of the "freaking friends" that they could get. Daria had to wonder if Quinn was aware that they had a song called "Freaking Friends" in their repertoire and that it was loosely inspired by her and Jane, or if her vernacular was just resembled the Spiral's that closely. She really hoped that it was the former and that Quinn was just trying to be cute.

"Hey, Lane," she called Jane in from where the artist was currently blaring some loud rock music that Daria had never heard before while she sculpted in the living room. Daria really didn't mind that Jane had made pretty much every room in the house partly an art studio. Her friend was extremely talented and needed the space to express herself.

Moments later the dark haired girl wandered into her friends room, "what's up?" Jane asked as she dried her hands on a green hand towel. The clay had been so built up on her fingers that she didn't want to go into her friends room without washing her hands lest she touched anything and ruined it.

"The Spiral's going digital," Daria commented ruefully, gesturing to her screen. She made a gesture to push her glasses up on her face while Jane read the message, and frowned deeper as she ended up pushing air. She would never get used to not having glasses on her face. The habit of readjusting her frames was so ingrained into her that she couldn't stop herself from doing it.

Jane smirked as she read Quinn's message. "Well, what do you know? The band's learning how to use computers? We might get that sound clip yet, Morgendorffer!"

Daria rolled her eyes, "why is my sister setting up your brother's band a networking page?"

The taller girl shrugged, "who knows why our siblings do the things that they do?"

"You do," Daria answered sourly. "Don't act like I'm stupid, Jane. I'm getting really tired of everyone acting like I am. I can see that you're in a lot of contact with your brother lately and I've heard you addressing someone on the phone as 'Princess Grace' a lot, which means you've been in communication with my sister as well. Since their obviously hanging out, and you're obviously speaking with both of them, you obviously know more than you're letting on. So, what's going on?"

Jane sighed, knowing that she had to give Daria something. She wasn't going to flat out tell her that Quinn was convinced that Daria and Trent belonged together and was revamping Trent's entire life because of that, but she could give her an abridged version. "Trent and Quinn got to talking one day and the outcome was that she would help him get his life on track. As such, she's doing some things for him like promoting Spiral and helping him learn how to budget money and stuff like that."

Daria looked skeptical, "she lives at home with our parents and works as a waitress. Don't get me wrong, if she's happy that's all that matters to me, but what makes her think she can overhaul them when she's not exactly a success herself? She doesn't know the first thing about budgeting or promoting"

Jane shrugged again. "I don't know, Daria. She's doing some good stuff for them. This website thing being just a little bit of it. The reason she contacted me was because she wants me to design artwork for them to put on promotional items and fliers to get their name out there. Quinn has some good ideas and she's pretty passionate about this. She's really kicking their asses to get them to look like an actual band."

"Well, she does know how to motivate men," Daria agreed, causing Jane to smirk. There was no jealousy or ill-intent in Daria's voice, just a dry statement of fact.

Daria was actually glad to hear that this was the basis of Quinn and Trent's relationship. As much as she had been trying to convince herself that she was crazy for thinking so, she hadn't been able to fight the growing suspicion that Trent and her sister were dating. Yes, Jane had convinced her that it was impossible, that it would be a match made in hell, but the more she heard Quinn mention Trent, and the more affectionate tone her sister took on each time that she did, the more she was convinced that they were an item.

Even now, she worried that all of this time together would push the two into a different kind of relationship.

Wait. Worried?

Worried about what? That Trent and Quinn would date? That they would split up? That they would stay together? That they would get married, have children, and live the rest of their lives together?

No. That kind of worry would only stem from _her_ wanting to do that with Trent, and that part of her life was over. It was. She had successfully squashed all of her feelings for the dark-haired musician.

She had.

Totally.

Well, for the most part.

She had mostly squashed all of her feelings for Trent. This sudden jealousy and this sudden rush of pulse and the flush that hit her cheeks when she thought about him was just the residual reactions to the lingering "what if" that was always in the air after someone moves on from a crush. The "what if she had told him how she felt", the "what if she hadn't dated Tom", the "what if she hadn't shut down every time he was around".

This wasn't a reopening of her feelings for him. It couldn't be. It was just her thinking about what might have happened between them…and enjoying the fantasy.

"Dammit," Daria cursed aloud as she recognized the fact that this was not leftover feelings of a forgotten crush or even the ponderings of what ifs. She was completely falling for Trent Lane all over again.

She hadn't even talked with him in months! How could this be happening?

"Damn what?" Jane asked as she clicked the link on Daria's laptop while her friend seemed to take a journey into herself.

"Hmm? Oh, um, damn Quinn for making me have to join one of these damn social networking sites," Daria fumbled, fighting desperately to keep the blush off of her cheeks.

She'd never blushed because of Tom. She'd never blushed over any of the guys that she had relationships with over the last couple of years. Just Trent Lane.

She couldn't tell Jane that she was crushing on her brother again. She couldn't live with the endlessly tormenting that Jane would put her through if she found out that she once again was fantasizing about her and Trent growing old together.

Jane was already setting up Daria an account while her friend half-heartedly cursed her sister. This was a clever move on Quinn's part and she was going to make sure that Daria took the bait on it. She would make sure that Daria had access to information and pictures of Trent, that she could see his thoughts whenever she logged on. Daria might try to fight it at first, but she knew the temptation to cyber stalk him would be too much.

In turn, Jane would make sure that she created her own account and tagged her friend in every single photo she could find of them together so that Trent could see them. She would encourage Daria to use this as a forum for her own thoughts and creative writing, because she knew that Trent wouldn't be able to resist cyber stalking her either.

"Yeah, she's a bitch alright," Jane agreed. "There you go, amiga, you're all set up."

"Wait, what?" Daria asked as Jane turned and left the room to continue sculpting, leaving the hand towel she'd brought with her on Daria's desk. She looked at the screen and saw that Jane had left it on Trent's personal page.

Her heart fluttered as she saw the main profile picture of him. He was wearing a black t-shirt and a smirk was grazing his lips as his black hair fell into his half-hooded hazel eyes. In defeat she dropped her head onto her desk, hitting it a few times as she felt the surge of emotions over take her once more. This was definitely a reborn crush coming back in full-swing.

"Dammit. Dammit! DAMMIT!" she groaned. She was too old for this, she was so much more experienced and comfortable with herself now to be feeling like she did when she was fifteen. She had several fulfilling relationships since that time!

She and Jason had gotten along so well that they had talked about moving in together. It was only when he made it clear that he could see them living the rest of their lives together that she decided to take a step back. She wasn't ready for that level of commitment to him. Still, they remained decent friends and still saw each other on occasion.

Jason had been the most adult relationship that she had ever had. She had trusted him and let him into places in her mind and bed that no one else had ever been before. She had learned from her time with him that she was capable of loving and of being loved, even when someone knew almost everything about you.

She really felt that he had helped her grow as a person, that he had taught her how to be in a relationship and deal with emotional investment in another person. As such, no one should be able to make her feel like she was experiencing a crush for the first time, though she had to admit if anyone was going to, it should be her first crush.

Yet, here she went again, down into her own mystic spiral of confused emotions and longing. She only hoped she could escape the embarrassing full-body, hospital-inducing rash this time.


	11. Intentions

Trent had never owned a computer before, but he really believed that he was going to have to invest some money into the device. He sat at the library and used the internet there to check his band's page. It was exciting to see the number of fans that they had increase daily. It wasn't by leaps and bounds, they were still under 100 fans, but they had fans.

He was surprised that a couple of fans had commented on the band's wall that they attended every show that they could and that they really enjoyed the sound that the guys put out. It was flattering and gratifying at the same time to receive such positive feedback from something that he put out into the world. It made him want to try harder for his fans, it made him want to succeed as a musician, to put in the effort so that he could continue to make other people happy. It was a weird and great feeling.

His biggest surprise was the friend request that he received from Daria. He was anxious to see what she thought of the Spiral's newer sound, what she thought of his upgraded appearance, what she thought about him now. Eagerly he had accepted the request and had posted the one thing that he would never tire of saying to her on her wall, "hey, Daria."

The next day when he was at the library again, he had smiled when he saw the simple reply of "hey."

They might have been growing up as people, both maturing and getting their lives into order, but the simplicity of their interaction, this one exchange that they had both deadpanned back and forth at almost every encounter never changed. He appreciated the simplicity.

It looked like she had started her page a day after the band and their members got theirs. That meant that she did it just to support him and the Spiral. He couldn't explain how amazing that felt, to know that she believed in them still. That she believed in him still.

He didn't deserve that from either one of the Morgendorffer sisters, yet they both unconditionally supported and believed in him. It made him want to be better. It made him want to be better in every aspect of his life. He had been waking up each morning, which was a miracle in itself, but he had been waking up each morning with the desire to better himself. He'd been keeping the house clean, he'd been keeping his clothes clean, he'd been watching the news, he'd been writing new songs, and he'd been doing it because he enjoyed it. Not because Quinn told him that he needed to, but because he wanted to, because he enjoyed it, because this was how he wanted to live his life.

He was almost happy.

He could feel that he was bordering on his new life, a life where he played music he loved with a band that he loved, and he had a following that enjoyed what he had to say because now he had something to say. And now, thanks to the internet, Daria was in his life on a daily basis. Jane was blowing up Daria's page with pictures and anecdotes to which the only thing Daria was replying was a simple "kill you."

He missed them. He missed their bantering, their death threats to each other, the way that Jane would mercilessly tease Daria about her crush on him while he pretended to be completely ignorant to the situation. It looks like she was starting again on the teasing, he wasn't stupid enough to think that Jane's posting all of these pictures was for anyone's benefit but his. He did appreciate it, too. It was fun to watch Daria and Jane's progression through the years, and to watch as Daria came more into her own being. To watch as she shed the oversized jacket and into a more fitted one, to watch as the skirts got shorter and the tops got lower cut.

He had to wonder when that started happening, when she stopped being so afraid of what people thought of her and when she had started to feel comfortable in her own skin. He still loved how she looked, he loved how everyone around her could be excited about something and she would look completely impassive. He now loved how she looked without her glasses.

Jane had told him that she had accidentally broken Daria's glasses, but Trent wasn't sure how accidental it was. Nor was he sure of how much of an accident Daria thought it was, especially since pictures of her without them were getting posted online. Most of the pictures Daria seemed highly annoyed in, but Jane had managed to capture a couple where Daria wasn't aware that it was happening. The one he loved the most and that he had kept going back to was a zoomed out one where Daria was sitting at the kitchen table, the sunlight was streaming through the kitchen window and hitting her auburn hair. She was wearing a dark green sundress and black sandals with a kitten heel. She had a chunky brown bracelet on with a matching necklace. She was reading a book, it looked like a text book, and had a look of sheer concentration on her face.

She was beautiful.

He'd always known it, but now it was smacking him in the face. She had grown up. Quinn had said it to him and he logically knew that it was true, but he hadn't seen the evidence of it. Now this photo. This was the proof that Daria was a woman, a beautiful woman that was smart and insanely attractive.

For a moment as he stared at the photo of her, self-doubt crept over him again. He couldn't fathom what she would see in him, what he could possibly offer her that would make her want to be with him.

He knew from Jane that Daria was working on her bachelor's in English and had every intention of going to graduate school to get her masters. She had published a couple of short stories in magazines and online, and she had gotten a couple of articles published in newspapers around the Boston area. She was working in a law firm as a file clerk, a job that Helen had gotten her by calling in some favors with some law school friends.

Daria had her life together.

He had shaken off the self-doubt though. He knew that he was getting on track, that he was starting to find himself after years of putting everything on hold. He was intelligent in his own way, he was sensitive, and he could make Daria laugh. He'd heard that kind of thing was important to girls. He also knew that not many people could make Daria laugh.

He might not be as smart as her, but she liked being around him. He didn't need to understand why. He just needed her.

After he left the library, he found himself walking up the familiar walkway to the Morgendorffer house. He cringed subtly when Helen opened the door.

"Trent," the mother of two young women greeted him curtly, putting her hands on her hips as she looked at the young man clad in black on her doorstep. She had to admit, he looked better in clean clothes that weren't stained or full of holes. "What is the meaning of having my nineteen year old daughter sleep over at your house? Do you have any idea how worried Jake and I were about her! She is too young…"

"Sorry, ma'am," Trent interrupted her, hanging his head and doing his best to look repentant. He knew that she was going to yell at him over this. He had hoped that since Quinn was allowed to see him again and that she hadn't brought it up, that Helen hadn't been too upset, but this greeting let him know that he was incorrect in that. She was angry.

"As well you should be, young man! Just what are your intentions with my daughter?"

That question gave Trent pause. They were talking about Quinn, but his real intentions lay with her other daughter. "Which daughter, ma'am?"

Helen looked taken aback by the returned question. She had meant Quinn, of course, but she had to admit that knowing his intentions regarding Daria would be nice, especially now that he was sober and would make more sense.

"Both," Helen decided. "What are your intentions with both of my daughters?"

Trent stuck his hands in his pockets and looked down at the ground while he thought about it. "Quinn's a business partner and the newly elected manager for Mystik Spiral. She's smart, funny, and really good at kicking my ass, which I need. I really hope that one day I'll be able to pay her back for what she's done for me. Intention wise, I'd have to say I want to continue to be her friend and business partner. She was over the other night and she fell asleep on my bed, I didn't have the heart to wake her up, so I let her stay there while I slept on the couch. I know I should have sent her home, but she seemed comfortable. Daria…" he sighed and thought further. "I'm willing to take whatever she would give a bum like me. I know that I'm not worthy of her, I know that I don't have much to offer her, but I'm in love with her and I'm hoping that she feels something for me too. If she doesn't, I'm not surprised, but if she does than I plan on taking that opportunity and running with it and never looking back. So, I guess my intention for your eldest daughter is that I plan on marrying her someday."

Helen felt her anger leave her as she faced the boy's simple honesty. He was in love with her eldest daughter and he wanted to marry her.

"Oh," Helen said as she stood aside and gestured for him to enter the house. Her tone changed as she led him into the living room and gestured for him to sit down. "Trent, you know that Jake and I have always liked you and your sister. You've both been amazing to our daughter and we don't want you to think that we disapprove of you or your lifestyle. I know it's hard to believe, but Jake and I were both against the government and the establishment when we were your age. We know that the system isn't perfect and we respect your choice to call it out. It's just…Daria's…special. She's…"

"I know," Trent cut her off again with the same simplicity in his tone. He wasn't going to gush, he wasn't going to compliment her and try to sway her opinion of him. Nothing could sway a mother's opinion until he proved himself and words weren't going to do that. "Daria's amazing and she deserves someone a lot better than me. I've always thought so. Quinn's almost convinced me that I'm wrong though, and truthfully, I'm enjoying what she's doing for me. It might not get me Daria, but it's getting me somewhere."

Helen frowned, "just be careful, Trent. When two people spend as much time together as you and Quinn are things can get unexpected rather quickly. I'd hate for either one of my daughters to get their hearts broken."

"M-om!" Quinn shouted in exasperation as she walked into the living room where Trent and Helen had settled into. She had heard more than enough of this conversation and was not going to let her mother undo any of the work that she had done in building Trent's confidence.

The musician looked from the couch as the redhead that was wearing a blue miniskirt and matching halter top with a long white necklace and matching white heels. Her hair was up in a ponytail and she had sunglasses sitting on top of her head. "Leave him alone, mother! Jesus!"

Trent smiled at her and stood up. Three weeks ago and he would have told someone they were crazy for thinking that he would be happy to see Quinn Morgendorffer enter a room, but the redhead had grown on him. She was like a kid sister to him. He wasn't interested in her as anything other than a friend and as a business partner, and he knew that she felt the same way. Helen was just being paranoid when she insinuated that something could possibly develop romantically between them.

That just happened in bad romantic comedies.

Quinn crossed the room and gave Trent a quick hug upon greeting, as she did each time they met now. She backed away after a few seconds and looked at him in surprise, "Why, Trent Lane, are you wearing cologne?"

Trent chuckled as Quinn grabbed her white purse off of the couch and kissed her mom on the cheek. "Yeah, some chick I know told me that smelling good is important," he teased her as he followed her out the door.

"Why, I must meet this clever girl who can impart such pearls of wisdom," Quinn retorted as she waved goodbye to Helen and walked out the front door with Trent in tow.

He chuckled and coughed into his hand as they made their way to her car. She had flat out refused to ever get into any vehicle he drove, ever. She had lowered her standards when she didn't have a vehicle of her own and hadn't been able to get around as easily, but she would never get into that Tank or that blue deathtrap again.

Trent didn't mind. Her car had a better soundsystem in it anyway, and he could rest his eyes if he wasn't driving.

They'd played a gig at the Zon the night before, the third one since Quinn had started to help the band out. Each one was busier than the time before. He had never seen so many people at the club to hear them before, neither had the owner. He wasn't usually there at night, so he didn't hear about the successful streak this regularly playing band was on until he checked out the books in the morning and saw that they'd brought in over four times as many people as they usually did.

Trent smiled as he remembered that a mosh pit had started. A pretty big one too. There'd never been a pit at a Spiral show, they didn't inspire that kind of energy normally, but apparently they did now.

It was definitely a new world, and the owner of the Zon seemed to recognize that as he had called Trent a few hours ago and requested an afternoon meeting with him. Trent had immediately called Quinn and told her that as a band manager she needed to go with him. She rearranged her work schedule, getting a boy that had a crush on her to show up for her shift for her, and had gotten ready for the meeting. Most likely this was to discuss a pay raise for the band members if they could keep drawing in crowds. There weren't a lot of options for a band to play at in Lawndale, but the venues liked to keep their bands happy, especially the bands that brought in a few hundred heads a night.

They drove in companionable silence after Trent settled the radio onto a hard rock station and let the music overcome him. He leaned back with a smile resting upon his lips and let the sounds overtake him.

He hadn't had a meeting with Les Tatum since he'd started playing at the Zon eight years ago. He knew that it wasn't a coincidence that the night after their music conjured a pit that Les wanted to see him. Things were finally starting to happen for the Spiral, and it was all because of the girl sitting next to him. It was because she had faith in him.

He was really going to have to do something nice for her.

"When we get in there, let me do most of the talking," Quinn stated, snapping him out of his thoughts. He raised his eyebrows but nodded nonetheless. It was why he insisted on her being there, afterall. She seemed to have a bigger handle on what they needed to do to make it as a band.

She nodded and did her best not to look nervous as she pulled into the parking lot and checked her makeup in the rearview mirror. She was incredibly nervous about this and she didn't know why. It wasn't her band, not really anyway. She was a manager in name only. It wasn't even legal. There was no documentation putting her in charge of this band. Trent was the leader, he was the front person, this didn't reflect on her at all!

But she was worried. Worried because she really wanted this band to be successful and she really wanted to be their manager and until she could prove that she could help them, everything that she'd been doing was useless.

Trent took her hand and squeezed it lightly. "Hey, it's going to be fine. Les is a really cool guy, used to be in a band himself a long time ago."

She nodded and smiled at the musician, thankful for this assurance before returning the hand squeeze, enjoying the warmth and reassurance of his hand in hers for a moment before slowly pulling away and getting out of the car.

He followed her lead, and entered the club a few paces behind her. It was all so different in the daytime. The outside especially, but the inside was weird when it was completely dead and natural light streamed through the windows. It looked withered and defeated in sunlight, poorly maintained and barely standing. At night, with the lights low, full of people, and beer in his system, it was home…but during the day it just seemed hollow. It was a lie. God, it made him depressed to see it like this.

He led her to the back and knocked on the office door. It opened a minute later and a man in his mid-fifties stood before them. He had a fedora on top of his thinning hair that was pulled back into ponytail. He wore gray slacks with a white collared shirt and a black vest. Quinn could make out a tattoo on his neck of what looked to be a dragon, and his ears each had 5/8 gauged black plugs in them. She could tell that he was an older rocker that was doing his best to look respectable as a business owner despite the evidence of his past life.

He gestured for them to come in, giving Quinn the once over before shutting the door behind them and sitting down at his desk. "Hell of a night, Trent!" Les began, holding out his hand for Trent to shake.

"Yeah, it was a good show," Trent agreed easily, slouching in his seat after shaking the club owner's hand. "Les, this is Mystik Spiral's manager, Quinn Morgendorffer. Quinn, this is Les Tatum, the owner of this fine establishment."

Les looked surprised, but held out his hand for Quinn to shake as well. She did so and did her best to not let her nerves show.

"So this is the chick that's made you boys sound good, huh? Ronnie told me that a real cute girl had come in with you guys last night. Why are you hanging out with these bums, doll?"

Quinn glowered at him for several reasons, but forced a smile nonetheless. "They're really talented and I believe 100% in their ability to be huge when marketed correctly. Last night was only the beginning for Mystik Spiral, it's only going to get bigger."

"Is that a fact?" Les asked her amusedly. "I don't know how many alt-rock fans you think there are in Lawndale, but I assure you, there aren't enough to keep this place packed every night."

The girl shrugged, "there are other towns around here that will be happy to have them play. It's only a matter of time before we gain enough of a rapport with the Lawndale rock scene that the name will spread out and when it does we'll hit up other clubs to keep it spreading."

Les nodded, knowing that if last night was an indication they very well could go on to bigger and better things. The Harpies on their best night hadn't brought in that kind of crowd, and they were on tour now. Ronnie had shot some video footage from the bar that he showed Les in the morning. The pit had been impressive. Trent's new look and words, Jesse's new song writing, and the fact that Nick and Max hadn't gotten into a fight on stage was definitely working for them.

"What you're doing for these guys is working, doll," he agreed. "We haven't had a show like that in here in a long time. That's why I wanted to see you, Trent. I'm sure you know that your old flame and her band of bitches are currently out of town doing a tour."

Trent nodded, not to keen on the description of Monique and the rest of the Harpies, but not willing to fight that battle.

"Well, that means that we've got one less band fighting for the Friday and Saturday night shows. You packed this place on a Wednesday, which isn't easy to do. You know we don't usually give you guys weekend nights, we like to keep the crowds here, but I think you're finally able to handle it. I've got this week booked, but if you'd like, we can set you up for Saturday of next week."

Trent looked at Quinn to see what she thought.

"What's the band's cut?" she asked him.

"What they normally get, $55 each and all of the beer they can drink." Les responded, looking slightly annoyed that she would ask.

Quinn shook her head, "that's not going to work for us. I could throw a show in my basement and get them more than that."

Les frowned, "what are you suggesting?"

"Do you charge a cover on Saturday's or is success based off of sales like on Wednesdays?"

"There's a $5 cover," Les agreed.

"We want 50% of the cover price," Quinn stated firmly, folding her arms and looking at the business owner. She was used to haggling with her mother and Daria, she didn't think getting the 20% she'd be happy with would be difficult.

The club owner scoffed at her, "are you mad, doll? 10%, nothing more."

"That's $0.50 a head, I think you're the one who's gone mad." Quinn retorted with a smirk. "These boys are worth so much more than that and you know it. 40%, final offer."

Les swore under his breath, "25% and all of the free beer they want for the evening. That's it, I won't go a penny higher!"

Quinn smiled and held out her hand, "agreed. You won't regret this. After last nights show and with an extra week to promote it, this place will be slamming."

Les shook her hand before he looked at Trent, "she's a shark, this one. Don't let any other band scoop her up."

"You think she's bad, you should meet her mother," Trent said with a shudder as he also shook Les' hand and stood up. He assisted Quinn to her feet and led her to the door. "We'll see you in a week, Les, thanks for the opportunity."

The club owner nodded and watched the two until they were out of the club. He shook his head. $1.25 a head going to the band. This was either a brilliant move that saved him a hundred dollars or it would be a crazy one that cost him a few hundred.

Somehow, he hoped for the latter.


	12. Freaking Hard Being an Adult

A/N: I don't do too many author notes because I figure people are here to read the story, not my thoughts on it, but I just wanted to say thank you to my fabulous reviewers. Each of you inspire me to keep cranking out this story. It's been a thought of mine for a couple of years, but I never felt this motivated towards it before.

Oh, and Caraline Fisher, despite what this chapter may imply, I am most definitely a Daria/Trent shipper and will die for my ship!

It soon became apparent that Trent was getting very into the social networking site and the updates he could get on Daria because of it, and so Quinn decided to start keeping her laptop with the wireless adapter at the Lane household so he could be on it whenever he wanted. According to Jane, Daria was as much a flustered school girl as ever when it came to Trent, especially now that they were in direct communication.

Quinn didn't know what they talked about, and she never asked. There were some things that were kept private between her and Trent. However, she did know that they stopped writing on each other's walls and opted for the private messaging route. She was definitely curious as to what they were saying to each other, now that they deemed it not worthy for the public to see.

She'd been tempted to invade his privacy, but she hadn't. Yet.

Trent's writing continued to improve, his lyrics getting edgier and more coherent. He practiced techniques with his voice to give them a better sound. The audiences seemed to dig his raspy voice, so he played on that as much as he could. All of it inspired Jesse to lay down better music composition. Nick and Max were just thrilled that they were finally getting to play music for actual crowds, that people seemed to enjoy the sound that they were putting out. They stopped arguing over song lyrics, they stopped picking fights with each other over stupid stuff, and they dedicated their time at rehearsals to laying down solid sounds instead of half-assing it.

Jane had come through with a design for the band and Quinn had updated the band page to invite all of their fans and their fan's friends to the gig at the Zon on Saturday night. She also had each of the band members take a stack of fliers and physically go into local stores and ask them to put them up.

The local independent music store agreed to keep a stack of them at the counter for their customers and to put it up in the window. When Quinn went in a couple of days later, the stack at the counter was gone. She smiled and replenished their supplied.

The guy manning the counter stopped her on her way out, "I've heard great things about the band," he told her.

She nodded and flashed him a smile, "they're a great group of guys."

"Do they have a demo? We've had people ask if they can buy one here."

Quinn did her best not to look surprised, "a demo? No, not yet, they're planning on mixing one soon. Promotional, of course, just for the hardcore fans."

He shrugged, "if you guys decide to sell one, just let us know, we'll be happy to sell it here."

She nodded, "I'll definitely keep that in mind."

A grin broke out on her face as soon as she left the store. She could hardly believe it! People were asking to have a Spiral CD! She was going to have to look into renting them a studio so they could put together an e.p. for their fans. She would have to discuss with Trent how he wanted to go about getting the studio time. She knew they couldn't afford it, she knew that they were far away from making enough from a weekly gig at the Zon to lay down their own demo.

He was on her laptop when she entered his house and found him in the living room. He was practicing his guitar while he stared at the monitor. Quinn crept up behind him and looked at the monitor. It was a news article on the war that he was reading. She checked his other windows and saw that he had Daria's page pulled up.

She guessed her sister made some crack about the war and Trent was reading up on it to see what she was talking about. Part of her mind declared that he didn't ever have to research stuff to talk to her, but she quickly stifled the voice and sat on the couch next to him. "Demo CD!" she announced to him with a squeal.

He looked sidelong at her before putting down the guitar. "Let me say goodbye to Daria and we'll talk," he told her as he reached over and flipped the window on the laptop. She saw that the two were actually holding a running dialog about something and that Daria had sent him the link to read. He typed a quick goodbye, citing that he had to talk business with Quinn.

Daria's quick response came, wishing him luck on the upcoming show and to have a good night.

"You two are talking a lot," Quinn muttered, her good mood expiring when he made it clear that talking with Daria was more important than the band.

Trent smiled, not noticing her sudden change in mood. "Yeah, this internet thing is amazing. I feel closer to her than I ever did. She's really helping me come up with things to write about, too."

Quinn's good mood was now at a 180 and she was as upset as she had ever been happy this day. Daria was helping Trent write his music? Daria was giving him ideas? Daria was honing in on her business?

Her eyes widened as this jealous thought shot through her head. Why was she so threatened by Daria talking with Trent about song-writing? Daria was a great writer, Quinn thought so herself, editors at several magazines and newspapers thought so. The goal was to make Mystik Spiral successful and to get Trent and Daria together. The best way to get both of these goals to fruition was if Daria, an experienced and well-received writer, worked with Trent on his music. This was what Quinn wanted all along.

Trent was talking with his dream girl. About his dream band.

Trent could not remain oblivious to Quinn's sudden mood swing. She'd come in very excited about a demo CD, and he really did want to hear what she had to say about it, but at the same time he didn't want Daria to think he just bailed on her. They'd been talking for an hour about how the current war was a vendetta a decade in the making, a family feud that had carried over from one president to the next. She had sent him an article about the Gulf War of the first Bush president's term and he learned a lot about what was going on now. School had never taught him about the Gulf War. They stopped teaching history right after the Nixon administration, saying that the presidential papers hadn't all been gone through so what really happened was clear enough to teach yet.

He hadn't cared at the time, he hadn't thought it was relevant; now though he was slightly pissed that they hadn't bothered to teach this to him in school. Not that he would have known anyway. He didn't have the best attendance or GPA of his classmates.

So, he wanted to say goodnight to Daria. She was the light that he was striving for, and he thought they both found it easier to talk to one another when they couldn't really see one another. He knew that he found it easier. For example, in one of their chatting sessions, he'd complimented her on the picture of her in the kitchen. He could practically see the embarrassed flush taking over her face as she read his words. Her response came back clear though, she told him that Jane was messing around with a camera that morning and she hadn't even realized that pictures were being taken. She'd had finals the next week and was using every moment she could to study, Jane was not stressing her finals and had decided to play with a camera she'd found at a garage sale.

He'd asked her what she was studying in the picture, that's how conversations went after all. Smooth transitions with the occasional flirting, keeping the subject up in the air until you knew the other person as well as you knew yourself.

She'd told him anatomy & physiology. He'd stopped himself from making several poor jokes, and he told her as much.

"Thank you for that," she'd typed back. He could hear her voice in his head as she said it, hear the subtle inflection. She'd said that to him before, he'd realized with a smile.

"Would you say that it really makes you think?" he'd written back, a little amazed that he remembered that day that she stood outside of his door and asked him that. She'd been beautiful even then, flustered and worried about Jane, stressed out from being the Misery Chick that everyone wanted advice from. And it didn't make him think. And she was thankful that it didn't, that someone understood that death wasn't something to dwell on, but to accept as inevitable while you lived a life separate from it.

"…I can't believe you remember that conversation," she'd written back to him.

He'd smiled at their mutual disbelief at this memory of this passing time in their lives. She'd been a Sophomore in high school at the time, he was still envisioning his life with a supermodel girlfriend. "What can I say? You stick in my brain."

"My soul's waves of grain?" she'd quipped back in seconds.

"I feel like I've heard that before," he'd joked.

It was a conversation. A conversation with a bouncing topic, and subtle flirting, where he was getting to know her.

A conversation that he couldn't have with her in person because she'd get flustered or he would say something stupid while distracted by her. He didn't want to mess this up. This was the best connection he'd ever had with Daria and he wasn't going to intentionally screw it up. Not by something as stupid as putting his band before her, or worse, putting her sister before her. He'd never make that mistake with a girl he was dating again. He shuddered. He still couldn't go into a book store after that.

Quinn had been so understanding about his want to form a relationship with Daria. Everything that he had done up to this point was her idea, it was her plan, and her effort that was changing his life so he could finally muster the courage to try for Daria. He couldn't understand why she seemed so upset by it now. Almost like she was…jealous?

No. That wasn't possible. He had told Mrs. Morgendorffer less than a week before that no one was going to get hurt during this. Quinn was a friend and a business partner, nothing more, and she knew that. She knew that! She knew that he was in love with her sister.

She watched the understanding light on his face and her own eyes widened in surprise. "Sorry, let's start over," she suggested, trying to push the sudden jealousy out of her mind. "I lost my head for a second!" She couldn't fathom this sudden anger with Daria and jealousy of her. Why, because Trent Lane, slacker extraordinaire wanted to date her? Marry her? Spend his life with her?

Because this guy that she had always seen as a total loser turned out to be really sweet, and funny, and creative, and talented…and he wanted to date her sister? Because she'd clocked more hours in his life than Daria had at this point and he still wanted to date _her sister_?

Nothing to lose one's cool over.

Nothing a mani-pedi and a trip to a hair salon couldn't fix.

Trent Lane was not going to unravel her. No way.

Trent slowly agreed to the suggestion, letting her go on about the demo CD while his mind raced over anything that he could have done to give Quinn the wrong idea about them.

Well, he did walk arm in arm with her at the mall. They hugged upon meeting now. He'd held her hand in the car to reassure her. They had personal jokes between them. He'd helped her out of her seat at the meeting at the Zon. She'd slept in his bed…

Okay, maybe there was some mixed signals given off. Signals that Helen Morgendorffer saw as a glaring neon sign and tried to warn him about, but hey, Janey had always said he was oblivious.

He wished he was oblivious right now.

Quinn paced her room that night, nervously biting on her thumb nail while she thought. She was wearing yellow shorts and a gray tank top, and had a white moisturizing mask upon her face.

Spiral's gig at the Zon was in two nights. On top of preparing for that, and she seemed to be the only one freaking out over it, she had also created weird vibes between her and Trent. She could see the musician's discomfort as he sat next to her on the couch and she talked about the band possibly laying down an E.P. for their fans. Her little freak out over how much he talked to Daria had opened both of their eyes to a very disconcerting reality.

Sandi had always told her that guys and girls couldn't be just friends, but she'd always laughed it off. "Oh, Sandi, of course they can! I mean, if the guy's ugly and doesn't drive a good car, but he's got a platinum card, we could still be friends!"

If she could go back in time and throttle her teenage self, she would. It made her so upset when she thought of all of the people that she had used, the boys that she had let fight over her because it made her feel special.

She'd wanted to bring it back to strictly business, but their relationship had never been strictly business. She was overhauling his life, not just his band. She had agreed to this. She had promised him that she could make him ready to date Daria.

He was. It didn't take much. A little polish, a little adjusting. She'd changed a small part of his life, and had completely rearranged his outlook on life. He was more confident now, he was ambitious now. Daria would take one look at him and fall head-over-heels.

Then one day, Quinn would get to stand next to her sister at her wedding to the musician. Well, next to Jane. Quinn didn't doubt for a second that her sister's best friend would be the maid of honor at that affair. Jane had been more of a sister to Daria over the years than she had. She'd thought that things were getting better between them too, now this!

Freaking Daria was trying to steal the guy she liked!

Wait, what?

That sounded crazy even to Quinn. Daria and Trent had been infatuated with each other for years. It was her knowledge of their mutual attraction that made Quinn want to help in the first place! Now they were communicating. Actually communicating about things that weren't Jane or him needing a tooth brush.

This was a good thing!

It was just…well, God damn it, Daria always got everything that she wanted!

Quinn stopped pacing and frowned at that thought. She really was losing her mind if that was the argument she was going to base her sudden dislike of their budding relationship on. Sure, when Daria asked for something people seemed eager to give it to her, but that was because Daria rarely asked for anything. She got what she wanted because she only ever wanted the bare minimum people could give her, and she only asked for things that she was certain that she could receive.

That was Daria. She was so insecure that she never tried for things that she didn't think she could succeed at, paralyzed by the fear of being rejected. Daria hadn't forced the issue with Trent when she was a teenager because she hadn't felt secure enough in succeeding. She was so certain that she would face rejection that she induced a stress rash over the thought of being around him!

Quinn was the opposite. She was confident and secure of her place in the world. She knew that a smile and a slight touch from her could get most people to give her whatever she wanted. When that didn't work, a pout, a whine, and a stomp of her foot generally got the job done. She had no trouble asking for whatever she wanted from people because she was used to people saying yes. Everyone said yes to her!

Guys had never been an issue. Except for David.

That was a hard time in her life, meeting a guy that thought that she was shallow, that didn't care how pretty she was when she smiled, how alluring her pout was. He was the first person that looked beyond her shell and decided that she wasn't worth the time. He'd been nicer about it. Nicer than she had been in half of her rejections of people. Still, he rejected her.

The first boy that she ever really liked for more than his car, or his money, or what he could buy for her, rejected her.

It was a horrible feeling and it made her understand her sister's perspective a little more. Why put yourself out there if people could make you feel this horrible about yourself?

So, this communication that Daria was doing with Trent was a good thing. It meant that Daria was feeling confident about herself, that she was feeling secure enough in herself that she didn't shut down around Trent.

It was a good thing.

And her younger sister had thought that if that happened she would love it, but she hated it. _Hated _it!

Damn it. Quinn needed advice.

She also hated feeling like a little kid as she crept out of her room and cracked open her parent's door. Jake was already soundly sleeping on the bed, snoring loudly, while her mother worked over some legal briefs with the help of the night lamp. "Oh, Quinn, did you need something, honey?"

There was that little kid feeling again, crawling onto the foot at her parents bed and pulling her knees up to her chin and resting her head on them.

This was too surreal.

She never thought that she would have a crush on the same man that her sister did.

And she never thought that if she ever _did_ develop a crush on someone that Daria did, she would know that she didn't stand a chance of winning him against her sister.

Helen took off her reading glasses and observed her silent youngest child. She knew that look. It was the same look Quinn had taken on when she thought that her guardian angel had deserted her. The look of a girl that was feeling like she was alone in the world. She was afraid that she knew what this was about.

"How's the plans going for Saturday night?" Helen tried again.

Quinn frowned and looked at her mom. "Okay, I guess. I think the band will be ready. People love them already. They're requesting a demo CD. Pretty certain they won't need me for much longer."

"Nonsense!" Helen chastised her. "Those boys are going to still need you to keep them in line. One good performance, two good performances even, doesn't mean that they're going to make it on their own. Lord knows that they need someone looking out for them, someone with a head on their shoulders…"

Quinn's lips twitched before she looked down and picked at some fuzz on her parent's comforter. She couldn't believe they slept on freaking cotton. How unromantic.

She sighed heavily as she decided to hit upon the true nature of this nighttime visit. "Trent isn't going to need me for much longer."

The frown that crossed Helen's face was swift and severe. As much as she had hoped that it wouldn't happen, Quinn had gotten herself emotionally involved. She wasn't surprised by it. Quinn was passionate when she took on a task and she invested herself in it wholly. Sometimes that passion got misdirected.

Trent Lane was definitely a misdirection.

She didn't think Quinn was in love with Trent. She thought that Quinn had made Trent the current focal point of her life and was starting to get upset at the thought of him caring for someone else and leaving her. She thought that her daughter was mistaking that jealousy as a romantic interest.

Quinn's relationship with boys was puerile at best, no matter how sophisticated she thought that she was. She'd never had a relationship with a boy. It had never been her interest, no matter how much she liked to date boys. It was the excitement and novelty of a new boy that motivated Quinn, she had never been able to settle into a relationship – they were too stale, too boring, too predictable.

Helen knew that Trent was not interested in Quinn as anything more than a friend. She'd seen the looks and heard the subtle changes in his voice as he talked about each of her daughters. He was grateful to Quinn, but he was in love with Daria. Trent was older than Quinn. Emotionally as well as physically. He was done playing around with girls and he was looking to settle down with the one girl that he really loved.

It was a lousy position for a mother to be in. She was happy that Daria and Trent were on the road to finding happiness together, but she was also saddened for her younger daughter that was feeling like she was being shut out of something she helped create.

"You'll always be Trent's friend," Helen began, not blaming her daughter for the scoff and withering glare she threw her direction. "You've given him his life back, his confidence back. He'll always have a place for you in his heart."

Quinn pursed her lips. She supposed that should make her feel better. Satisfaction in a job well done. Hurrah, a guy that she practically molded out of thin-air was going to be the perfect guy for some other woman.

It was freaking hard being an adult.

Logically, logically she knew that Trent Lane and her were a bad idea. A freaking horrible idea! He didn't have a steady job, he'd never once asked to take her to Chez Pierre, he drove a beater car that she wouldn't even get in, and he needed people to help dress him… he was a freaking mess! But he had a cute smile, and he was super sweet, and he was passionate, so passionate about his music.

"I'm being stupid," Quinn moaned as she climbed to the head of the bed and lay down next to her mother, careful to not wake her still slumbering father up.

Jake rolled over at this interruption in his bed, but was otherwise still.

Helen sighed and looked at the adult woman lying beside her as she did when she was six and had a bad dream. She was semi-annoyed with Trent for this. "You're not stupid, Quinn. Trent is just in a different place in his life than you are."

"The kind of place where he pines away for girls that get embarrassed when he talks to them?" Quinn snarked back, burying her face in the pillow, mindless of the facial mask that she was transferring over.

Helen frowned at Quinn's portrayal of her older sister. Daria was sensitive, yes, but it wasn't her fault that Trent had taken a liking to her. "He'll always need your help, no matter if Daria's in his life or not."

The girl felt a pang of guilt as she thought about what she was saying. She still believed in Daria and Trent. She still thought that they would be good for each other. She just hated that things were working themselves out so easily. She hated feeling like her purpose was being taken away from her again.

If Mystik Spiral took off and was successful, then they could hire someone much better than her to run their business affairs. If Daria and Trent worked out their feelings for each other on their own, then she wouldn't have a reason to control Trent's life…and then she would have to start taking a serious look at her own.

Tears trickled out of the corners of Quinn's eyes and her mother wrapped her arms around her, letting her release the emotional dam.

It was freaking hard being an adult.


	13. Piercings Revisted

Daria really didn't know why she had agreed to go on this little expedition with Jane, or why she had ever agreed to do it any of the times that she had. As much as she hung out with alternative people, she had little to no interest in tattoos, piercings, or pot…which all seemed to be prerequisites for every tattoo and piercing parlor she'd ever been in.

It had become a tradition, however, since Jane got her first flaming skull tattoo on her ankle the day that she turned 18 that Daria would sit next to her and keep her company during the ordeal. Daria had complained bitterly the first time and swore that she wouldn't go, but when Jane mentioned it was a tattoo parlor or a nail salon…the decision had been made pretty quickly.

This would be Jane's fourth tattoo and her second skull one. This time, it was going to be a Day of the Dead style skull on her left shoulder blade to match the dancing skeleton couple, the girl in a red skirt and white top with long flowing black hair and the man in tan pants and a white shirt on the left shoulder blade. Contrasting the skull and skeleton tattoos she already had, Jane's third tattoo had been an ornate Celtic love knot on her lower back. She often got commended on her choice of "tramp stamps" from people that saw it…and she loved to flash it to whomever she could get to see it.

Currently, Daria and Jane's conversation was focused on their usual commentary at a tattoo parlor, namely what Jane thought that Daria should get permanently emblazoned upon her body…and where.

"An Easter egg around your belly button as a reminder to every guy that's lying over you that you're fertile!"

"Exactly the reminder guys in their early twenties are looking for," Daria agreed dryly, rubbing the bridge of her nose between the thumb and index fingers of her left hand. "Well put a skillet below it to let them know what will happen if that egg gets fertilized."

Jane smirked, "Your motherly instincts always amaze me." She was lying face down on a table as a large heavily tattooed man with long brown hair half hidden under a red bandana and wearing a white wife beater and blue jeans towered over her and worked on copying Jane's design for the skull onto her shoulder blade. He was half following their conversation and was a little amused at the banter going on between the two girls.

Jane appeared to think for a second, "I know I've said it before, but you can always get a pussy cat on your…"

"Lane!" Daria cut her off sharply. "That cat would be decapitated."

"How very Itchy and Scratchy of you," Jane mused.

"Itching and scratching," Daria mused. "Again, not really the idea I ever want guys thinking of in that situation."

Jane frowned in mock thought, "I'm getting mixed messages, Morgendorffer. You don't want guys thinking about your cat, but you don't want them to be opposed to thinking about it?"

"Sounds like every chick I ever dated," the tattoo artist grumbled.

Daria looked up at him and half-smiled. "That must mean I'm doing it right."

Jane laughed at her friend's response. "Ok, symbolism is out. You're more of a word's girl anyway. How about the ever classic quote 'Kinky is using a feather, perverted is using the whole chicken'?"

"Classy," Daria responded, rolling her eyes.

"If you want it to be classy, put it in Latin," Jane retorted.

"That I would consider tattooing on me," Daria said leaning back in the blue plastic chair she'd been given to sit next to Jane and looking up at the ceiling. She'd never thought four years ago that she'd be comfortable in a place like this. She'd been so intimidated by Axl's when she and Trent went there together. Of course, she didn't know if that was because of the parlor itself or because of the guy she was with at the time…or the gorgeous Amazon woman that came in and lit up at the sight of Trent.

She'd changed though. She recognized that she and that girl weren't really that connected to each other anymore. She was still cynical, still sarcastic, but she was also a little more open and receptive to others, and a little more open to how others could respond to her. The guys that she dated respected her for her mind and for her body. They liked the entire package, and she liked knowing that they did.

"How about some Shakespeare? Something like 'This above all, to thine own self be true". It's so catchy, wrap it around your torso!"

"The irony of me tattooing that across my body would not be lost on me," Daria answered, shaking her head and watching as the artist diligently worked to copy Jane's design onto her shoulder blade. She had to admit, he was pretty quick and accurate on copying Jane's artistry. Jane hadn't been too thrilled with the dancing skeleton's tattooist, but Daria thought that she would like this one.

"Well there has to be something that you'd like to have a daily reminder of!" Jane groaned in frustration.

Daria thought about it with a slight frown upon her lips. "There's not one thing that I think I would like tattooed on me for the rest of my life. I mean, this skull you're putting on you right now…how are you going to feel about it in 60 years?"

Jane scoffed at the question, "60 years? Daria, I don't know how I'm going to feel about anything in 60 days, let alone 60 years! I'm not going to spend my life petrified of anything because it might affect something 60 years down the road. That's you're problem, Morgendorffer, you think too damn much!"

Daria tilted her head to the side as she considered that. She'd never thought of thinking a lot as a problem, but apparently everyone else in her life thought that she could. She stood up and moved away from Jane as she examined the body jewelry section of the store. There were so many sizes and styles of rings and bars that people could stick through their skin.

Unconsciously she scratched at her belly button as she thought about the ring that she'd stuck through there because Trent Lane had told her to when she was fifteen. She'd thought it was a bad idea then, she'd hidden behind the protest that her belly button hadn't done anything to her to deserve the treatment, but really, it had been fear of looking stupid, fear of being judged, fear of not being good enough that had made her so terrified of doing something outside of her comfort zone.

Jodie Landon had nailed it on the head when she'd said that it was okay to get a piercing as long as it was something that was done because she was trying to impress some guy. Daria had gotten that piercing because of Trent, because she wanted to seem "cool" in some way to him because she had never felt that way and didn't know how to keep his attention. She'd gotten rid of it because it was more of a nuisance than it was worth. It had itched more than her first pair of contacts had, and she'd been as embarrassed as she was with her failure to keep the piercing in as she was at her failure to wear the contacts for more than a few minutes.

Both situations, she'd been too embarrassed and too vain to admit that she couldn't keep the items in that made her appearance more socially acceptable, and she had been too embarrassed to admit that she wanted to keep the items that altered her look once she had them, even when it became apparent that she couldn't because they irritated her.

She wasn't sure which one was stupider – piercing her belly button for a boy or walking around near blind in a school because she didn't want to put the glasses back on and lose the sudden attention that she had received.

It was hard being friends with the Lane's sometimes. They were so free and open with their whims and she was the opposite. They balanced each other, but she couldn't help but be envious of their ability to push reason aside and just work off of a vision they had in their head. They had artistic integrity and to hell with what anyone else thought. Daria had visions, but she feared what others would think of them, and even more than that, she feared other people realizing that she cared what they thought of her vision. So she didn't try, she didn't do anything that showed her personality.

Yet, she didn't feel like that girl anymore.

She didn't feel the need to hide herself under baggy clothes and was feeling less and less attached to the large black frames every day that she spent without them. The boots were still a staple in her wardrobe and she doubted she would ever relinquish them. The point was though that she was not that scared fifteen year old anymore.

"What are you thinking about, Morgendorffer?" Jane asked as she watched her friend stand before the body jewelry section with a contemplative look on her face.

Daria faced Jane with a half smirk on her face, "how much that goddamn belly ring itched."

"You only had it in for a couple of days, Daria! You didn't even give it time to start healing."

"It wasn't a mild itch, it was painful, scratching at my stomach constantly burning itch! It was driving me nuts."

The tattoo artist looked up at her, "what was it made out of?"

"Excuse me?" Daria asked in her patented deadpan.

"The ring, what was it made out of? You might have a high sensitivity to nickel. A cheaper ring is higher in it. If it wasn't a titanium ring, and you have a sensitivity to nickel, it can be a very itchy and scratchy moment."

Daria considered that. Did she really think that Axl gave her a quality job? He didn't even check her ID, taking him on Trent's word that she was eighteen. It was a piercing special. "I have no idea what they pierced me with."

"Axl's rings are cheap," Jane told the guy, glancing over her shoulder at him since he was currently not drawing on her back. "I've had some itchy moments myself with a few of the rings he's put in my ears. It's not a quality shop, but it's all that Lawndale has."

He gestured to the mirror and Jane stood up and checked out the design in the mirror, smiling with satisfaction that he had almost perfectly copied her design over. It was more expensive to ask the artist to draw the design on her first instead of just free handing it, but after her massive disappointment with the dancing skeletons, them ending up looking skewed and cartoonish under an unskilled artists direction.

"Absolutely perfect!" she told him with a broad smile.

He nodded and gestured for her to get back on the table so he could make the design perfect. He didn't blame her for the extra work she asked him to do, he'd been looking at the tattoo on her other shoulder blade and could tell that it was not what she'd designed. "I can fix it for you," he told her once she was settled back in. "Another $20 and I'll fix what that butcher did to your design."

There was humor in Jane's voice as she said, "well, I don't think you could make me hate it more than I already do. Sure, for $20, let's put your skills to the test!" Her attention turned back to her friend that was still awkwardly examining body jewelry. "What say you, Daria? Are you going to put a titanium ring through that belly of yours? You know my brother would think it was hot."

Daria fought back the blush that threatened to rush to her cheeks. She was well aware that Jane knew that she and Trent were now in regular communication with each other, and Jane had been hinting frequently that Daria's crush on Trent was back. It was, but Daria didn't feel that same teenage anxiety about it that she did the first time she crushed on him.

Trent was seeking her out. He was sending her messages asking her opinions and for advice on things.

_He _flirted with _her._

She wasn't naïve anymore and she wasn't writing off his flirtatious advances as just the way he was. He knew what he was doing, and she liked to think that he meant it.

He would think that the belly ring was hot.

She wasn't going to get the belly ring though because Trent would think that it was hot. The teenage Daria did that.

The almost 21-year-old Daria was going to get the belly ring because she was ready to step away from the teenager that couldn't handle it. She didn't want a tattoo, she was too much of a long-term thinker to ever put something so permanent onto her form, but as she learned the first time around, a piercing would close up very quickly once she was tired of it.

"Yeah, let's try the titanium ring," Daria answered, looking at the tattoo artist. He nodded and let her know that he could do it for her after he was done with Jane's tattoo.

The other girl simply quirked an eyebrow with a smirk hitting her lips. "You are such a sucker for the Lane charm."

Daria Mona Lisa smiled as she turned and examined the body jewelry once more.

A knock drew Jane to opening the door to her shared apartment with Daria, where she found Jason, Daria's most serious ex-boyfriend standing on their threshold.

Her eyes widened in surprise at the sight of him.

She and Jason knew each other from BFAC. They'd been in an Art History class together and had gotten paired up for a report on Renaissance painting. Jane hated Art History. She didn't want to know everything about every painter that museum curators deemed important. She thought that art should speak for itself. You shouldn't need to know the history of an artist in order to interpret their work.

Fortunately for her Art History grade, Jason thought differently on the subject. He pretty much wrote that report for her, she just provided the venue for them to sit and do the report at.

She'd liked him and had considered him as a potential romantic interest. That was until Daria came home from Raft one day. One snarky comment from her and a volleyed retort from Jason and a couple was born.

Daria had learned to handle herself better around men, so when Jason asked her out for dinner, Daria had simply looked startled at first and then to Jane to see if she would be upset, when Jane shrugged, Daria had agreed.

They'd been on a steady relationship course since that meeting, up until he told Daria he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. For Jane, once that happened, it was like watching Daria and Tom date all over again. Awkward in moments, sweet in others, but Daria was always on the watch, always suspicious of motives, and always looking for a reason to bail on the relationship.

The one way that teenage and adult Daria's didn't differ that much from each other, in Jane's view, was that when they saw a relationship reaching its end and they stopped enjoying it, they dropped it because it wasn't good for them. Daria was pragmatic that way. She'd try to fix a problem, but if didn't get resolved and it kept coming back up, she would let it go.

Jane was different and so was Jason. They would keep fighting for a relationship like trying to stop a boat from sinking by draining it out one teaspoon at a time.

While she had supported Jason and Daria as a couple, she respected her friend's ability to push aside irrational feelings and to look at a relationship logically and see that no matter how much she wanted it to, it wouldn't work out.

Jason didn't have that respect for Daria's uncompromising devotion to logic. Since the break up almost four months ago, he had called and come by at least 20 times. He was serious about wanting Daria back and he wasn't going to take her adamant statements that they could be friends, but the relationship was over as truth.

Up until a few weeks ago, Jane had been secretly hoping that they would get back together. Sure, she'd liked him for herself at first, but she thought that he and Daria were really good for each other. That was until she knew that her brother was in love with Daria, and she saw the glimmer of teenage Daria that flushed and stammered in front of guys.

Daria still liked Trent, too. Jane had a theory that it was why Daria gave up on serious relationships so easy when the other party's involved fought so hard. Daria was never willing to completely close the door to Trent, and getting really involved with another guy, moving in with one and getting engaged would mean that she and Trent really didn't stand a chance with each other. Jane didn't think Daria was ready to admit that.

Now it was looking like she wouldn't have to.

Jane was officially onboard with Team Trent, so having Jason show up at their apartment was very disconcerting for her. She was afraid that he would come up with some magical combination of words that convinced Daria that he was the man of her dreams and then Trent would get his heart broken.

"What are you doing here?" Jane asked him, positioning her body in the door so that he couldn't walk in around her. She could see his surprise at her tone and at her body language that was suggesting that he left.

Jason flashed a smile at her, his dimples melting Jane a little under their intense cuteness. "Hey, Jane, is Daria in? I thought maybe the three of us could go get a pizza lunch together?"

Jane considered it. She really didn't want Jason and Daria to spend time together, but if they were going to, she wanted to be there as a proxy for Trent. If she could keep Daria reminded of why she was crushing on Trent, then Jason wouldn't stand a chance. It would be weird though to try and tell a girl why she should be attracted to her brother.

At least Daria didn't want to date Wind.

With a sigh, Jane stepped aside and let Jason into the apartment. He'd had a key of his own up until the break up. Jane really thought that he shouldn't have pushed that moving in together thing so early with Daria, especially since they practically were living together as it was. Six months of dating was way too early to try to cage Daria.

Jane gestured to the sofa and went to talk with Daria who was in her room on her computer.

She found the brunette in the middle of a chat with Trent via instant messenger. She smiled, knowing from talking to Trent that these conversations with her made him so happy, and knowing from living with and observing Daria that she took as much out of them. They made each other happy.

"Sorry to interrupt your little sex chat with my brother," Jane began, causing Daria to shoot her a withering glare, "but Jason is here and wants to take you and I out to lunch."

The look that crossed Daria's face was one between annoyed and resigned, but she nodded and signed off with Trent and went with Jane into the living room where her persistent ex-boyfriend was waiting.

Fifteen minutes later found the three awkwardly sitting in a booth together at Jane and Daria's favorite pizza parlor.

Daria absently scratched at the ring in her stomach that was still healing from her trip to the tattoo parlor with Jane the day before. The titanium didn't itch as much as the ring that Axl stuck into her. It was mildly annoying, but not nearly as insanity inducing as the last time.

"Stop scratching at that thing," Jane chastised her, grateful to have this new conversation piece to talk about. "Hey, Jason, Daria did the craziest thing yesterday and reopened the belly button ring she got when she was fifteen."

Jason looked at Daria in surprise. He new that when she was a kid she had a crush on Jane's brother and he'd convinced her to get her navel pierced without even realizing the pressure he'd put on her. Daria had been quite frank about her relationship with Trent Lane and some of the stupid things that had happened because of her crush on him. Daria had also let him know though that she would never get a belly ring again because they itched and weren't worth the hassle.

"We went yesterday to get me a new tattoo," Jane began supplying the information at the face of Daria's silence on this subject. "Daria here practically volunteered to get it without me even having to twist her arm. My little girl is growing into quite the alternative little lady. Speaking of which, Daria, did you hear that Quinn wants to get the Spiral a demo CD?"

Daria half-smiled at this conversation change. She had indeed heard from Trent about Quinn's ideas. Quinn hadn't called her or returned her call in a couple of days. Daria thought that she knew why based off of Trent's description of a conversation he'd had with Quinn earlier in the week. She'd been leery of a relationship forming between Trent and Quinn, but she was more scared that a one-sided relationship would form.

Since Trent had immediately contacted Daria for advice on how to gently let Quinn down while maintaining the friendship, she was convinced that it had happened how she was afraid it would. She was secretly relieved though that Quinn fell for Trent and not the other way around. She really didn't think she could handle it if Trent wanted to date her sister.

"Yeah, Quinn's really working hard to turn those boys into a respectable band." Daria answered, taking a sip of her Coke. Jason and Jane were sitting next to each other, an arrangement designed by Jane that wanted to separate the ex-lovers as much as a couple as she could. Daria was relieved that Jane seemed to understand finally that she didn't want to get back together with Jason.

She didn't know why Trent thought that she would be able to tell him how to let down a girl easy when she couldn't figure out how to get rid of a guy when she tried to gently. It was clear that drastic measures would have to be taken in order to shake this guy out of the relationship mindset.

"Wait," Jason entered the conversation, pushing his unruly blonde locks out of his eyes. "Quinn is working for Mystik Spiral?"

"She's their manager," Jane informed him with a smirk. "She's doing a great job. The band has never sounded better apparently and their starting to bring in some decent money. Isn't that right, Daria?"

Daria glowered slightly at her friend whom she didn't feel was being very subtle in her desire to keep the conversation focused on Trent and the rest of the band. "According to Trent, tomorrow will probably make or break them as a band. They're getting a Saturday night gig at the Zon, for Lawndale, there's nothing much bigger."

Jason was both surprised and dismayed to hear Daria giving news about Mystik Spiral, especially since she said that Trent told her. He'd met Trent when he went with Daria to her parent's for the holiday season last year. He wasn't blind to the fact that Trent was majorly into Daria, nor was he blind to the soft, affectionate smile that crossed Daria's lips whenever Trent came into the room or came up in conversation. The saving grace had always been that Daria believed that there could never be anything there and so she never pursued anything with Trent.

It looked like something had changed her mind on that.

A reopened piercing and direct contact with Trent Lane. As much as he didn't want to admit it, his ex-girlfriend was moving on with her life without him…like she had told him that she wanted to do and he had ignored her about.

He'd never dated a girl like Daria before. She was insanely intelligent, she was beautiful, and she was funny. He'd dated girls that had one or two of those qualities, but she was the only one that had all three.

It was strange to be sitting across from her and not next to her. It was strange to have her sitting there without her glasses on, casually sipping a soda and talking about Trent Lane and Mystik Spiral's big break. Daria without her glasses was something he had until this afternoon held exclusively in his mind as how she looked in their bed, how she looked when she was sleeping and when she first woke up.

He hated that anyone else could see her in a way that he held intimate in his mind.

He hated that he could see Trent Lane would get to experience that moment of watching her sleep.

He hated that he knew that he had lost her, and that he would never get to watch her while she slept again.


	14. Bittersweet

A/N: Sorry for the delay! For some reason I lost my inspiration this last week and I didn't want to force anything that would fall flat with the characters. I hope it was worth the wait!

As a general rule, he didn't like things to be uncomfortable in his life. Comfortable clothes, comfortable bed, comfortable friends.

Some people excelled under the pressure of conflict and drama, but Trent Lane was not one of those people. He found drama to be entirely too stressful. He didn't thrive off of the adrenaline rush he received when things were going wrong. He didn't feel alive when being pushed to his limits.

As such, he sought out people in his life that helped him maintain an easygoing balance. He hung out with the same boys he did in high school because it was easy. He didn't date a lot of different girls because relationships were hard. He and Monique had a tumultuous relationship, but even that was easy because it was patterned at this point. They bickered, they agreed they weren't compatible, and they moved on for a little while before settling back into a comfortable relationship, and starting the process over again.

They both knew that a real relationship wouldn't work out between them. She thrived on drama and he avoided it at all cost. They had fun though. When they stopped having fun, they stepped away to preserve the friendship.

She probably wouldn't even recognize him at this point in his life. She and the Harpies had been gone on their tour the last month. They had no ideas the Spiral had stepped up and had turned into a big act around the Lawndale area. Part of him was excited to see their faces when they came back and realized that their male counterparts had started to grow up.

Things weren't easy anymore though.

He sighed and wrote out some stray lyrics in his notebook before looking out the restaurant window next to him. On the table was a half eaten ham and cheese sandwich, simple, easy, and a Coke.

His stomach really wanted a pizza, but he didn't really want to see anyone he knew right now and that ruled out the Pizza King.

He didn't know when things stopped being easy. Part of him liked all of the change…really liked it. Part of him dreaded how complicated things were getting in his life.

His relationship with Quinn had been pretty easy going up until the point that he realized that she was a lot younger than him and might misinterpret his generally laid back attitude and regard for interacting with others as something more than his general nature. Then things got tense.

And he didn't like drama.

Generally if he knew something was going to cause conflict in the future, he dealt with it up front. Like Daria and her piercing a few years ago. He could have let her think that he didn't know that she had taken it out, but that would have been stressful on her every time she saw him, and he'd have to pretend like he didn't know about, which would have been a lie by omission, and that would have been stressful to him.

Telling the truth and dealing with it before it became drama was so much easier in the long run. He learned that early and lived most of his life honestly.

This thing with Quinn though was a puzzler.

It would be easier if he didn't respect her opinion and value her as person and friend. The trouble was that he did respect and value her. He liked her.

She was smart and funny and was generally a great person to be around, and she was a great manager for the Spiral. She was a spectacular balance of hard ass and free spirit that could communicate on his and the band's level while still motivating them to try harder than they ever had before.

Quinn had given him a confidence boost that he hadn't even realized that he needed. She'd shown him that he could do more with his life than sleep all day and play half-assed music all night.

She'd introduced him to the world.

He wanted to do the same for her, and he figured letting her know that if she was developing a crush on him then she was wasting her time and emotion was not the way to build that confidence.

Something about the Morgendorffer girls made him less willing to be that honest.

Daria wouldn't be pleased if he hurt her sister.

That's why he talked with her about it. He wanted to get her opinion on the best way to handle someone with a potential unrequited crush.

Her mirthless chuckle when he asked her what he should do about a girl having a crush on him and wanting to let her down gently wasn't lost on him. It had occurred to him only after he heard that short burst of laughter that perhaps a girl who spent a significant chunk of her teen years with what she perceived as a hopeless crush on him wasn't the best person to go to for advice in this situation. Especially since he never had the courage to tell her either way how he felt. However, there wasn't that many people that knew Quinn that well that he could ask for advice from.

It was Daria, Jake, or Helen.

The thought of asking the nervous, irate and at times highly irrational Jake Morgendorffer advice about how to perhaps hurt his daughter was ludicrous.

And Trent was just plain scared of talking with Helen about it.

Daria was the only logical choice, no matter how awkward that initial introduction to the conversation was. She knew her sister, and no matter how hard she tried to hide it sometimes, she was very protective of her sister. She might laugh at her expense, extort money from her, and humiliate her when the occasion presented itself, but that's because they were sisters. That's what you do to keep a younger sibling in line. He knew that from being on the giving and receiving end of a younger sibling's role in the family.

Her concern for Quinn made Daria the logical choice for advice on how to avoid hurting her. He also didn't want Daria to think at all that he and Quinn were dating. Janey had told him that Daria had expressed that apparently horrifying thought to her and he wanted to clear that up.

So, he sought her out. Like he had been seeking her out about everything in his life. She'd been worried about Quinn's feelings for him, especially after he said that there wasn't a chance that anything would happen between the two. He could hear the subtle note of worry in her voice about her kid sister. She let him know that Quinn wasn't one to get emotionally involved with someone easily. Quinn had dated a lot of guys, but not many that she had actually cared about as people rather than as someone that could do something for her. Daria told him that if thought Quinn was interested in dating him, he should consider himself extremely lucky.

It was almost comical for him to have to let he know that he wasn't interested in Quinn, but not have the guts to tell her that it was because he was interested in her. He already considered himself lucky that Daria was interested in him because like her sister, Daria didn't get emotionally involved with someone easily. He didn't deserve that. He didn't feel like he deserved her.

Daria was closer to him than she had ever been before, but she still seemed like a distant star. Her light was getting nearer though.

All Daria had been able to tell him advice wise regarding Quinn was that if he was serious about not wanting to date her to not wait and let her get more emotionally invested. She'd ended the conversation by telling him that if he hurt her little sister she would be more than happy to add certain pieces of his anatomy to the collection of body parts in her room.

He remembered seeing what he believed were replicas in her room at her parent's house the few times he'd been in her room. He sincerely hoped that they were replicas now.

He and Quinn had met a couple of times since that afternoon where she exhibited jealousy over his talking with Daria. She'd been reserved, not at all her normal exuberant self. Her mannerisms had been jittery, she'd been all business and had not met his gaze if she could help it…and it bothered him.

He had gotten used to the idea of having Quinn in his life, having her make fun of him and encourage him at the same time. Quinn was an inspiration to him, and somehow it had gotten all messed up.

The concert at the Zon was in a few hours and he wasn't even sure if Quinn was going to show up. He knew that it was important to her that things went smoothly tonight, so he hoped that meant that she would be there for him and the rest of the band. The problem was though that things had been so awkward because he wasn't willing to talk about it that there was a possibility that she wouldn't show up tonight because she didn't want to make things worse. He appreciated that about her, but it upset him at the same time.

It wasn't like he _needed_ her there at the concert. He and the guys had done tons of concerts at the Zon without her being there.

It had never seemed this important though.

He wanted there to keep things easy for him.

There was an energy crackling in the air, he could feel the excitement, the new life that Mystik Spiral was bordering on. Tonight was going to be the first night of their careers as musicians. He knew that.

They'd been playing music together for almost a decade, but it was just that, playing. They hadn't been serious about it, or rather, he hadn't been serious about it. His laid back attitude had encouraged the rest of the band to slack off as well. They'd talk about getting serious, getting their acts together, making things happen, but as soon as an excuse not to get serious presented itself, they all dropped the act in preference of slacking off.

_Traumatized._

Yes, he and the band had been traumatized.

Traumatized by his unwillingness to grow up and face the world that was moving quickly around him.

He never thought that Quinn Morgendorffer would be the catalyst that woke him from his stupor and reintroduced him to the world. He never thought that the girl that crashed at his and Jane's house and drove them insane with her incessant babbling so many years ago while her parent's were out of town would be the same girl that he owed his rebirth and reawakening to.

Then he couldn't wait to be rid of her.

Now he was scared to lose her.

He sighed and ran his hand through his dark hair, looking at the clock on the wall of the diner he was sitting in. He was supposed to be meeting with the band soon to practice one last time before the show tonight, but his heart wasn't really into it.

It was the feeling he got before Quinn decided to take over his life. The feeling like nothing he did mattered, so there was no point in trying. He wanted to wrap himself in that sensation and let the cocoon of apathy swallow him once more, to allow things to become easy again.

He knew that was wrong.

He wanted to be better. Not just because Daria wanted him to be more, but because he needed something more than what he was. He was just scared that he couldn't do it without Quinn.

Her energy and her faith in him were what had turned his life around. He didn't know if he could do it if she left him.

Trent looked down at the loose fit blue jeans he was wearing. They were so untorn and unstained. He'd never been a huge jeans fan, but the few pairs that he did own before Quinn were so ripped and stained they were barely recognizable as a functional piece of clothing instead of a rag used to wipe up grease while working on the engine in one's car.

He discovered, now that he owned some clean clothes, that he liked wearing them. He liked looking nice and smelling nice. He liked the shy smiles girls gave him when he walked by. It made him hopeful that he would see that same smile on Daria's face one day.

Quinn had given him hope.

He knew that he needed to talk with her and to straighten this out. He wanted things to go back to easy, but it was becoming increasingly apparent that things would never be that easy again. So, he'd have to be honest and maintain that one easy tone of his life. He didn't lie, by omission or otherwise.

Except with Daria.

But that relationship had never been easy.

With a sigh, he dropped a few crumpled bills on the table to pay for the meal, grabbed his trusted tattered notebook and hauled himself out of the diner and into his beat up 1972 blue Plymouth Satellite and began the drive to rehearse with his band. His rings tapped habitually against the steering wheel to the beat of the song on the radio. He leaned back and tried to wipe his mind clear of Quinn and Daria and everything else that was stressing him out.

He just wanted to focus on the music and the show that was going to happen tonight. He could handle everything if he just took them one thing at a time.

He just wished he felt any closer to solving the Quinn dilemma.

Quinn imagined, as she watched the audience from where she sat at the bar observing the festivities from a safe distance, that this was what a parent felt like when their child learned to walk on their own. The last show had been their first teetering steps, she'd been proud then, but this was them standing and walking on their own without needing her standing behind them.

It was bittersweet.

They were growing up so quickly.

Soon they would be traveling like the Harpies, gaining fans in every town that they went to. She sentimentally wondered if they would remember her when they were famous. Would they remember that it was a spunky redhead that was eight years their junior that motivated them to finally follow their dream? Part of her hoped that she was still along for the ride during their travels and their breaks so that they didn't have to remember her, she'd be there. Part of her was scared that while she was really enjoying what she was doing, they would start to realize that they could do it without her.

She looked at this last week and how the band managed to go on without her mental presence. For the last several days she'd been physically distant, but mentally absent. Her talk with her mother hadn't cleared anything up for her.

She knew that Trent wasn't interested in her as anything other than a friend. Their relationship started with the basis that she would hook him up with her sister. No matter hw many romantic movies she watched, she knew that things wouldn't play out where he realized he loved her more than Daria.

Quinn wasn't even really sure she wanted it to work out that way.

She just wanted to be needed. She wanted her life to have a purpose and Mystik Spiral made her feel that way. Trent made her feel that way. Daria would ruin that for her.

She hated being jealous of her sister. It was like the universe was mocking her by making it so that _Daria_ stood a chance of making her obsolete.

The roaring of the crowd was drowning out her thoughts, which she was entirely grateful for. She'd been moping around for far too long about Trent Lane and his inability to see her as anything more than Daria's sister.

She needed to be out in a crowd like this. She'd already had to tell six guys that she wasn't interested in dancing with them. She'd had three Diet Pepsi's brought to her, and she'd seen more than one girl glare at her because the boy she came to the club with was trying to go home with Quinn.

Not that she'd go with ANYONE that she met at the Zon.

Trent and the band were cool because she knew them, and while she had grown leaps and bounds in her tolerance of people since her days in the Fashion Club, this was still the place that her geeky older sister hung out at in high school. Granted, Daria did meet Tom Sloane here, but in Quinn's opinion that was just a waste of perfectly good old money.

So cute, so rich, but such an annoying tool. He was so annoying trying to pretend that he was too good for his parent's money, driving around in that deathtrap he called a car that made "The Trentmobile" look like the winner of Car & Driver's safest automobiles on the road award, or whatever it was called.

She could practically hear her mother chastising her about how good Tom was for Daria and how he had helped bring her out of her shell. How she needed to learn to respect that she and Daria had different ideas on dating and that Tom filled a specific spot that was right for Daria.

Whatever. That didn't mean that she had to like him.

The point was that being out at the club and not being able to hear her own thoughts over the loud music that the boys were playing made her feel like herself for the first time in a very long time.

Bittersweet.

Nostalgia for the past mixed with yearning for the future while being stuck in the present that looked hopeless in both directions.

It was only when she couldn't think that she felt normal. Part of her wanted to run into that feeling and disappear back into her shallow high school world where the most important things on her mind was whether or not her aqua toe nail polish complimented her hair color and if she had an appropriate skirt to accentuate her legs if she wore those slingbacks with the peep toe and the four inch heel.

The newer part of her that was trying desperately to claw free was taking a slew of mental notes on the goings on in the crowd. Which of the songs they seemed to enjoy the most, the age demographic, the energy, the lighting, the lineup of songs. She was already planning for the next show and wanted to make it even bigger.

Though, this evening was pretty successful, she would have to say. The online promotion and the fliering really seemed to reach out to the people and get them in the club.

She could see Les talking with a bouncer at the door. He looked excited and stressed out as the club continued to fill with people. It was exhilarating to know that helping Trent follow his dream had inadvertently helped out a man she knew nothing about before she took up with Trent by filling his club full of people. She had made a difference in his life, even if it was only temporary.

It was a good feeling.

The show lasted almost two hours, the band playing through almost everything in their repertoire, including some of their earlier material that some of the regulars of the club seemed happy to hear. She supposed it was that nostalgia thing again. They even played the song that he and Daria had worked on together. Quinn hated to admit that if they ever released an album it would be their first single.

They said their final good nights and ducked off stage. Quinn stood up and tried to catch up with them, but the crowd all began to disperse, making crossing the room difficult. Les intercepted her and talked with her about the band and perhaps giving them a chance to play again, not so close to this show because he didn't want to burn his patrons out on them, but perhaps in a month.

He also wanted to give her recommendations of other venues in neighboring communities where they could promote the band in a way that didn't detract from his business.

It was with a smidgen of resignation that she followed Les into his office. Her place was behind the scenes, pulling the strings for the band to make them succeed. While she would have loved to met up with them and partied with them, she realized that business needed to be handled first.

She wondered if her mom ever felt that way.

He was riding high off of the adrenaline of the crowd. Max and Nick were shouting at each other a few feet away from him where they stood in the parking lot near the Tank. They weren't angry or fighting, they were just so amped up off of the show that they couldn't communicate any other way.

Jesse was MIA at the moment, the last Trent had seen him he was scamming on a gothic looking chick that was pierced and tatted up to such a degree that it almost frightened Trent. He liked piercings and tattoos on a girl, but he also liked the girls he was with to still be feminine, to not look like they were related to Pinhead.

Trent had seen Quinn disappear with Les into his office. He knew that they were both workaholics, so he wasn't too surprised that after a successful show they would already be planning the next one.

Trent's blood was pumping too hard to even think about the next show. He'd played the Zon dozens of times, but it had never felt like this. He had never felt like a rock star before, but now he did.

They'd done an encore.

Usually no one clapped. Usually they had a couple dozen people standing around and half moving to the music.

This crowd had been unbelievable.

Without thinking, Trent located his phone in his black cargo pants and pulled up the one person that he wanted to talk with the most.

"Someone had better be dead," the sleepy and grumpy voice drifted through the phone and into his ear.

"Hey Daria," he greeted her, feeling calmer just hearing her voice.

"Trent?" Daria responded. He could practically see her sitting up in her bed in one of her oversized t-shirts, searching for her glasses while pushing her hair out of her face. "It's a quarter til three in the morning, Trent."

He cringed remembering that Daria was one of those diurnal people that slept at night. He'd been getting there over the last month, but he wasn't there yet. "Sorry, the show let up a little while ago, we just broke down the equipment and loaded it into the van. I couldn't wait to talk to you."

"How'd it go tonight?" she asked. He heard a creak and realized that she'd gotten out of bed. Part of him felt bad that she got up for him, another part of him was elated that she would. She'd made it clear that she was tired, but she was still willing to chat with him since he wanted to.

He didn't know how to describe it. "It was amazing, Daria. They loved your song, by the way."

"My song?" Daria said in surprise. "Trent, I tweaked a few verses around, it's your song."

"It's our song," he decided in his easygoing tone. Despite the evenness of his tone, he could hear his pulse rushing in his ears. He could imagine the blush that overtook her cheeks. God, he wanted to be in the same town as her. He wanted to play a show and then go home to her, wake her up in person and have her discuss the night with him while she drank some tea and did her best to stay up.

There was a long pause while she considered his words. "So they loved our song, huh?" she finally continued the conversation.

Agreeing, he gave the play-by-play while Max and Nick gestured that they were going to go locate Jesse so they could get out of there. He nodded and continued to talk with Daria.

She was the only person in the world that he wanted to talk to after such an amazing evening. While she could be incredibly harsh about her views on the world, Daria was a great listener and had always been very encouraging to him. He liked to hear her input on the evening.

He liked when she said that she was proud of him.

He liked when she said that she couldn't wait to see him.

He liked that she didn't question why he was calling her after having such an amazing evening.

He liked that things had changed so positively between them.

Trent didn't notice that Quinn had stood behind him listening to his end of the conversation with her sister. Nor did he notice when the redhead turned and left, getting into her own car and leaving the club and band behind her without speaking with them at all about their successful evening.

It had never been more clear to her than in the last hour that she was just a manager for a band.

She was never more aware that she was deluding herself if she thought that the weeks that she spent with him had made her and Trent Lane friends.

She had never felt more alone.


	15. Queen of Gracious Responses

The lump underneath the pile of blankets stirred grumpily as Jane Lane prodded at it with the pointy end of the bathroom plunger. While Jane was not a morning person and was happy to have a few extra hours of quiet time under her covers, it was well into the afternoon and the artist found her roommate's continued slumber to be quite perplexing.

"God damn it, Lane, leave me alone," Daria groaned as she tried to curl herself into a smaller ball in the bed in the attempt that she might disappear altogether from Jane's view and slip back into her unconscious state.

Jane smirked, "don't make me use the other end, Morgendorffer."

Cautiously, Daria peaked out from underneath the cover. She saw a red blur that she identified as her friend in her running attire and in that blur's appendage was a long wooden stick with a red rubber suction base. She groaned and threw the covers back over her head as she deduced what she was being poked with, "I hate you."

"And I you, amiga," Jane cheerily replied, tossing the plunger onto the floor and beginning her quest to tug the blankets off of the prone form beneath them. She'd woken up at around four that morning and heard Daria carrying on a dialog with someone. She sincerely hoped that it was Trent and not Jason trying another pitiful attempt at reconciliation.

The last time had not ended well.

If Jane had ever thought the two would get back together, the afternoon that they all went to lunch together had proven her incorrect…and she couldn't be more happy about it. Jason had been disturbed to find out about Daria's new piercing and her budding friendship with Trent. He'd held his tongue well for a ways into the conversation, but finally his jealousy about her slipping away from him overcame him and he had asked her if she was trying to relive all of her silly high school mistakes by desecrating her body and throwing herself at a guy that clearly didn't want her.

That had led to a defensive Daria telling him that her dating a self-righteous, arrogant asshole that thought that he knew what was best for her was the only high school mistake she had repeated since enrolling in Raft and she that she was trying to remedy that situation, but he just wasn't taking the hint.

Jane had felt it rather harsh as Daria had deadpanned her part of the conversation instead of saying it in jealous anger like he had, but she couldn't help but laugh at the comical shade of red he'd turned before he sputtered that she needed to grow up and that he'd wasted enough time on a girl that was hung up on her high school crush, and he stormed out of the restaurant without looking back.

Daria had saluted his leave with her pizza and the two remaining friends had managed to have a drama free lunch together. As far as she knew, the two ex-lovers had not talked since.

Daria groaned and kicked half-heartedly at her as Jane successfully unwrapped the girl from her blanketed fortress. Jane caught the foot and grinned as she pulled on it and dragged the smaller girl out of her bed, making her crash onto the floor in an ungraceful heap of tangled hair and cursing.

"Good morning, starshine," Jane greeted her as Daria looked up at her again with murder in her gaze. "Though, really, it's mid-afternoon. You and I were supposed to go jogging about an hour ago. I've been very lenient, but I'm hungry and would like lunch soon, and I need to go running, and you're going with me. I'm not letting you slack off on exercising just because you want to have odd late night phone calls with random boys."

"Trent's not random," Daria muttered as she pulled herself to her feet and groped around on her bedside table for her glasses. She was more than a little annoyed that she'd been literally dragged out of her bed and that she could already feel a bruise forming on her hip from where it hit the ground.

Jane's eyes widened in delight at the admission that it was her brother that her friend had been speaking to and not Jason. She still liked Jason as a friend and hoped that the breakup wouldn't affect their friendship, but, come on, it was Trent and Daria. The fifteen year old in her was squealing in delight like a Twilight fan girl seeing a poster of Taylor Lautner without his shirt on.

"I'd say Trent was the ultimate in random, but that's just me," Jane responded happily as she shoved her friend towards her closet and waited for her to pick out some exercise clothes.

The Freshmen Fifteen had hit Daria a little harder than most people, bordering on the Freshmen Thirty. Like any good friend that didn't want to lose their pizza parlor pal when their friend flipped out when their clothes weren't fitting anymore, Jane had offered to help her friend into an exercise routine with minimal dieting. Daria had been reluctant and had bitched at first, but they'd eventually worked out a system that allowed Jane to get her full running exercise in and had taken off some of the excess weight that Daria's unhealthy eating and generally sedentary lifestyle had put on.

The pounds had shed down to Daria only having put on eight or nine pounds since she graduated high school. It was an eight or nine pounds worth of sore subject though. While Jane, and most of the male population of Raft, thought that Daria looked more than fine, the smaller girl was highly sensitive about how much she had put on over the years. Jane thought that the extra pounds had accentuated curves that Daria had done her best to hide in her high school years; Daria thought that her body was a spectacle now.

While she thought that her friend was crazy for hating how her body looked, and while Jane wished that she had the figure of either Morgendorffer sister, she was simply glad that Daria expressed an opinion either way about her body. There had always been a slight worry in Jane that Daria had no concept of her physical being, that she was unaware of her body and the message that it sent out. Jane appreciated the little reminders that Daria was human. She was happy to realize that her friend was still an insecure girl like the rest of the girls in high school and college instead of the machine she sometimes acted like

Leaving her friend to change, Jane grabbed the wayward plunger off of the floor and marched it back to the bathroom before continuing her journey into the kitchen to prepare a couple of water bottles for them. Their roles were usually reversed in this situation with Daria being ready to go and Jane having just fallen out of bed at her friend's insistence. It amused her to no end that Trent had called Daria and kept her up half of the night after his show.

She was insanely curious as to what the two of them had discussed. When Quinn had proposed this matchmaking, she was more than a little skeptical, but now she could see that the two were finally in a place mentally and emotionally that a stab at a relationship might be feasible. She'd always known they were good for each other, she just hadn't realized when she was younger that they both had some growing up to do before they could try to date.

Trent was finally growing out of his post high school cryogenic freeze, and Daria had enough relationship experience under her belt at this point that she didn't shut down automatically when someone tried hitting on her.

It still freaked Jane out a little bit though when she saw her friend kiss a guy. At one point it had been hard for her to imagine Daria ever being intimate with anyone; she knew that she was now, but it was still weird. She imagined it would be even weirder when that guy was Jane's brother.

Daria wandered out into the common areas of their apartment wearing black shorts, a white t-shirt with "fuck you" eloquently written across her chest in black bold font, black running shoes on, her contacts in, and her hair in a high top pony tail. She pointed at the words on her shirt and then at Jane, who simply smiled and handed her a water bottle.

She'd feel sympathetic towards Daria's abrupt awakening, but the shorter girl had woken her up in a lot ruder ways over the year they'd been roommates, so feeling bad about a just payback was just not in the cards.

The two girls stretched out in silence, Jane trying to make small talk but being greeted by the silent wall that was Daria Morgendorffer upon trying to wake up without caffeine. Jane didn't take it personal; she wasn't a morning person either. She knew that her friend wasn't really irritated with her, just irritated by being awake in general when she'd rather be sleeping.

It wasn't until the two were a little over a half mile into their jog that Jane finally broached the subject. "So…why the hell did my brother call you last night?"

Daria shook her head while trying to keep her breath and run at the same time. She was not cut out for this jogging thing, but she had to admit, it beat the hell out of the cheerleading practice she used to get as exercise in high school. She'd never thought that she would need to exercise, but an all pizza and junk food diet sneaks up on you quickly. Running with Jane kept her more motivated than anything else because at least she was doing it with somebody, somebody else was there to force her to get up and go, and someone was there to entertain her while torturing her. Plus, Jane never asked her to diet. It was a fitness plan she could subscribe to as long as pizza could remain the staple of her diet.

"He just wanted to let me know that the show went well last night," Daria shorthanded the almost two hour conversation that she and Trent had the night before. She hadn't even realized how much time had passed while they were talking. Time stopped being relevant when she was talking with Trent.

She'd been groggy and annoyed when she first answered the phone, but that had melted away at the first sound of his gravelly voice. She wanted to talk to him, she wanted to hear that familiar rolling tone, now tinged with excitement because he was enjoying his life. She'd gotten out of bed and made herself tea before settling back under her covers while listening to him talk about the show in explicit detail.

He'd decided to walk home from the venue because the guys were loud and were heckling him about being on the phone when he should have been partying with them. Multiple times Daria had asked him if he wanted to go and celebrate with his band, but he told her that he saw and talked to them all the time, and that after such a successful evening the only person he wanted to talk to her was her.

She was so grateful that he couldn't see the flush that tinged her cheeks with that comment. Try as she might, she couldn't get used to that flirtatious honesty that Trent spoke to her with in increasing frequency. Daria had managed to stutter out that she liked talking to him too and that there was no one else that could wake her up just to talk at the time that he did.

They'd talked for his entire walk home and then for another half hour after he got home.

She'd been exhausted by the time he'd started to sound tired and said he had to get going because he had rehearsal at noon.

"It couldn't have waited 'til morning?" Jane asked skeptically, glancing sidelong at the shorter girl that was doing her best to keep up with her. They would make a little over a mile loop back to their apartment where Jane would drop Daria off and continue for another three miles on a different path.

Jane still loved to run and she loved the scenery that Boston treated her to, which was a vast improvement over the suburban Lawndale picture book snoozefest she'd run by her entire life.

"He was amped up and wanted to talk about it. It's not a big deal, Jane," Daria tried to deflect.

"Not a big deal? Out of all of the people that my brother knows in the world, after what I'm imagining was a good show…and I don't know if it was because I haven't talked to him yet, he chooses to call you to talk about it?"

Daria had to admit, it did seem weird. A month ago and she would have told Jane that I was crazy to think that she and Trent would be talking so frequently and so intimately about almost every aspect of their lives. She still wasn't quite sure how it had happened. One day she was going along with her life, practically convinced that Trent Lane was a school girl crush of days gone by, and then the next day he was back in her life and she was thinking about him all of the time and having more conversations with him than she had in the entire five years before.

"He just needed to talk to someone, who knows why he called me!" Daria exclaimed, wishing that she had the physical body to run ahead of her friend and be done with this conversation, but being all too aware that Jane viewed this lap that they did as her warm up for the real run that she was going to go on. The artist wasn't winded in the least while Daria was doing her best to have enough air to hold the conversation she didn't even want to be having.

"So…he called you and not me?" Jane again broached the subject. She'd been exceptionally lenient on not pushing for further details of the relationship between Daria and Trent. Quinn had assured her on multiple occasions that the two were speaking regularly and that Trent thought that things were going well. Daria was a lot more tightlipped on the subject, not willing to express her feelings and have them ridiculed. Jane wished her friend would get over that hang-up and recognized that the annoyance she felt about her friend having the fear was contributing to the validation Daria felt in believing her feelings would be mocked if expressed.

So, she'd been hands off. Subtly, or as a subtly as she knew how to be, pushing Daria towards Trent in the hope that her friend would stumble upon the long since buried emotions she had for the musician.

"You're not exactly delightful upon being woken up," Daria reminded her friend.

Jane snickered at this, recalling that not more than a half hour before Daria had cursed her out and tried to kick her for interrupting her sleep. "You're the Queen of Gracious Responses to Unexpected Awakenings," Jane agreed. "In any case, it still doesn't explain why he called you. Trent hangs out with a lot of other musicians, Monique for instances was most likely awake and can better appreciate a good show than you can. So, why'd he call you?"

Daria didn't like hearing about Monique, and she liked facing Jane's line of questioning even less. She had hopes of why Trent wanted to talk to her. She hoped that the flirting he was doing was because he actually felt something for her. She hoped that Trent valued her opinion and wanted to know her thoughts. She hoped that when she went to Lawndale it wouldn't be like it had been every other time she'd seen Trent. She didn't know though. She didn't know for sure why he called her, she didn't know for sure if he was flirting with her because he liked her or because he just flirted with girls when he talked with them, she didn't know if he actually cared about her thoughts and opinions, and she didn't know how they would react when they saw each other.

She had hopes though.

"I don't know, Jane. Maybe he called Monique first and she didn't answer. Maybe he just called because we get along and he thought I'd be happy for him."

Jane thought about how to phrase the next question carefully. Daria was clearly struggling to understand what was happening and wasn't willing to face yet that Trent liked her more than he liked anybody else. Jane didn't want to spell it out for her completely, but she figured she could shed some light on the subject.

"Do you want him to have called you before Monique?"

Daria froze at the question, stopping her running and staring at her friend that was running in place to keep her heart rate up now that they weren't moving forward.

She didn't want to think about these things. She didn't want to have to face that neurotic jealousy over Trent's statuesque and beautiful ex-girlfriend that she'd felt since she first met Monique at Axl's and had felt every time she'd seen and heard of her since.

Trent had actually talked with her about Monique in one of their instant message sessions. He'd said that they were over, that they'd been over for almost a year now, but that they were still good friends.

She supposed it was kind of like her and Tom. She'd remained in contact with him like she said that she would and she still considered him one of her very good friends. He was getting married in the fall to some rich prep girl named Debbie or Cindy, or something like that. Daria couldn't remember offhand what the girl's name was, not because she was bitter and couldn't face that her ex-boyfriend had moved on, but simply because she wasn't bitter towards this girl that she'd never met before that was marrying someone that at one point Daria did love…in her own unique way. She didn't think about the girl. She wasn't consumed with jealousy and she'd never met her personally, so little things like her name escaped her.

She didn't have any romantic feelings for Tom left and she wished him well with whatever he wanted to do with his life, including getting married to some girl he had met only seven months before.

They were still good friends though and she was pretty sure that they always would be. She was actually invited to his wedding, he'd told her to bring Jane along if she wanted since he and Jane had not remained in such close contact over the years. She was still trying to decide if she wanted to go. Jane said that they had to go and that it wasn't optional; she would be so inspired by all of that wasted money. Daria didn't know how appropriate it would be for two of his high school ex-girlfriends to show up at his wedding.

No bride would appreciate that.

Now, if Trent told her that he was getting married, she didn't think that she would handle it so well. She didn't know if she could be gracious. She definitely knew that she couldn't handle going to the wedding, not out of respect to the bride that wouldn't want her there, but because she could see herself doing something horribly embarrassing to try to stop the wedding.

She was mortified at the thought of telling Trent that she'd been in love with him for years moments before he was set to get married…and having him kiss her on the cheek and tell her that was sweet before he married a girl that looked like a supermodel.

Was she happy if Trent called her before he called Monique? As much as she didn't want to admit it, she would be bloody ecstatic if he thought of her before he thought of a woman that he'd been dating off and on for several years.

"Trent and I are good friends," Daria finally said to Jane as she resumed running.

Jane fell into step next to her friend. "I don't know what world you're living in Morgendorffer, but that's not an answer to that question."

Daria's lips quirked into a sad twitch, "we're just friends Jane. He and Monique have a long, tumultuous history together. It would be natural for him to want to talk with her before she talked with me."

"And yet, we still haven't answered the question. I'm onto your tricks, Daria; none of your circular talking will get me to forget that I asked a question."

They were only a few feet away from the apartment complex, having completed their lap around the neighborhood. Daria thought about how to answer the question and realized that she couldn't lie to her friend and clearly trying to avoid it wasn't working. Giving up, she sighed and said, "I hope he called me first." She then dashed up the front stairs of their apartment building and into the safety of the complex and away from the questioning of her best friend.

With a wide grin, Jane shouted "yes!" and threw her arms up in the air in victory. Daria had finally admitted to her what she'd known all along, that she was crushing on Trent and wanted to form a real relationship with him. "Queen of Gracious Responses to Unexpected Awakenings, indeed!"

Her blue eyes danced in merriment as she pulled her iPod out of her pocket, put on a fast song, put in the earbuds and continued her run. She'd only been up for a few hours, but she felt so accomplished in this day.


	16. Aren't We Paying Her?

Due to having to work, Quinn skipped out on going to Sunday's Mystik Spiral rehearsal, but she was there on time for their Monday evening session. She figured she didn't miss much on Sunday since the band was probably hung over and still too hyped up to do anything productive.

Her spirits lifted from the slightly depressed state they'd been in since Saturday evening, before that even if she was going to be honest with herself, when the band all excitedly cheered when they saw her. She would have liked it if any of them had called her and thanked her for arranging the show and promoting it and handling everything for them, but it was almost as nice to be greeted enthusiastically when she showed up to rehearsal. It was almost like they wanted her there.

"Oh, stop," she tried to say in her normal nonchalant manner, but it came out strained even to her own ears. Hearing Trent talk with Daria the other night after the show, hearing the easy manner he was addressing her sister with, the affectionate tone, had bothered her. She had put the work in promoting the show, encouraging Trent to become more than he had ever thought he could, working with each guy in the band on their appearance and their role in the band. She did the work and Daria was going to get the benefit from it. She did the work and the first thing that he did was to call her sister and talk with her about how great the evening had been.

She knew that she signed up for this. Quinn continually reminded herself that she was being irrational because this was her idea! She had chosen to do the work so her sister could be with the guy that she'd liked for years.

It still hurt though to know that he hadn't wanted to talk with her about the successful evening that they had both had.

Shaking her thoughts off, she flashed the guys a smile. "We all know that you boys just want your pay from Saturday's show."

"Where'd you disappear to the other night, boss?" Nick asked her as she settled into her normal spot on the step and began rifling through her purse, looking for the envelope that she'd put their cash into.

She looked up at him and noted that his hair was spiked and green. Part of her wanted to chastise him for it and let him know that no respectable girl would ever go for a guy with hair like that, but she'd been to the show the other night and she did know that there were a lot of girls there that would have been happy to have a go with any of the boys in the band, perhaps because of their unique sense of fashion.

This was a learning experience as much for her as it was for the band.

"I watched the show," she let them know, aware that she hadn't really seen any of them that night. "You guys did so well, I was so proud. Seeing you all up there looking and playing so well really made me feel like we were accomplishing something. The crowd was really digging you, too. So, I spoke with Les after the show. He's excited to have you guys play again there, but he wants to hold off for a month or so just so the act doesn't get stale at his venue."

Trent looked at her in surprise, unaware of this development in their status and not happy in the least about it. "We're losing the Zon for playing? Besides crappy high school parties, that's our only venue."

She didn't blame the musician for being upset by this news. Being shaken out of one's rut is never pleasant.

"Les gave me a list of other places outside of Lawndale that we can try to play at. I've already called and left messages at several of them to try and book another show soon. The fans were really pumped on Saturday, if we can keep that energy going we can spread into new towns and introduce the Spiral to new crowds. You guys are good. If we can keep it together, each show is only going to get bigger and better."

Max looked at the clean-cut girl sitting in the basement with them and shook his head. When she showed up at their first rehearsal he thought that Trent was out of his mind. The girl looked like jailbait and she wasn't at all the type of chick that any of them ever usually went for. Way too high maintenance for their general slacker natures. He had vague memories of her in some sort of country outfit coming and bailing him out of jail a few years back. That whole trip got filed into the category of not worth remembering, including the girl Daria dragged along with her to bail them out.

When it was explained that she was going to be overhauling the band a few days later he had almost walked out and called it quits for good. He'd been threatening to for a long time now and this was almost the blow that pushed him over the edge.

He didn't need this little girl trying to tell him how to do something that he loved. He didn't tell her how to shop and spend her daddy's money, and he didn't need or want her telling him how to be in a band. He was a rebel and he didn't need this walking GAP ad trying to take over his life.

A month later and he couldn't imagine her not being in the basement with them, her not yelling at them to stop fighting and to start playing their damn instruments, her not making critical comments about their wardrobes and hair and cuticles…which was something he'd never given thought to before, but now couldn't quit looking at.

The point was that Quinn had done more for the Spiral than anyone outside the band had ever done before. Hell, if the recent style and confidence change in their front man was any indication, then Quinn might have done more for their band than anyone inside the band had ever done before also. She was a powerhouse of ideas and energy, she was organized and took the initiative. She was in a different generation than them and she was helping them reach the target audience of young club goers, people that were looking for a new sound and a new message to latch onto.

As much as they all disliked it, grunge was dead. They could jump onboard the recent rash of horrible country rock music that screamed about partying and twanged about degrading women, they could join the legions of long haired metal rockers that screamed and growled into the microphone words that couldn't be understood but were at times highly poignant if you read the album liners, or they could try to take rock into a different place altogether.

Personally, Max liked the direction that they were moving. They were moving. It was weird for him to even think about the fact that Mystik Spiral – and they were pretty committed to the name at this point – were going forward as a band and doing more than playing the same songs with the same rhyme scheme and the same three chords in the same damn place they'd been playing for the last few years.

He was excited about playing in this band again. He looked forward to going to the rehearsals. He hadn't felt that way since they first formed it almost a decade ago.

There was silence for a moment as they all absorbed that they'd gotten too big locally to play the same venue every gig. It wasn't a record contract. It wasn't national recognition, but it was recognition.

Part of Max was annoyed that it had taken this fresh out of high school chick to get their acts together. They could have made it big by now if they had just dedicated themselves to something other than drinking and smoking pot over the years. A larger part of him was grateful to the support and organization that she brought to them. He really didn't know if they could do it without her.

He knew that her bigger plan involved Trent and the band was just a side thought to her master goal, but if he had any say so, he wanted it to be permanent. He couldn't imagine trusting their music careers to anyone else at this point. It was hardly like Jesse's brother was doing half as good a job running their fan club. Quinn had gotten them more fans in a month than Danny had in five years.

"Hey, Quinn, you mentioned our money…?" Jesse hesitantly asked the girl. He hated being the one to ask for it, but he did need the money. His part time job of teaching guitar to middle schoolers didn't quite cover all of his expenses.

Nick at least had a regular retail job at a head shop on Dega that helped supplement his lifestyle. Of course, half of his paycheck went to child support.

She nodded and pulled an envelope out of her purse. "I went and saw Les this morning and got the check, and then I cashed it for you guys. I'm not sure if Trent told you guys, but Les and I worked out a different payment method for you than the usual $55 each and all the beer you want."

"The beer wasn't free?" Nick asked nervously, thinking back to the five or six pale ales he'd drank that night. He really hoped that he wasn't charged the $35-$40 that would have cost him. He needed this money.

"She kept the free beer," Trent assured him, shooting Quinn a lazy smile. He could tell she was still uncomfortable around him and he wanted to let her know that things hadn't changed. He still thought that she was the best thing to happen to them. He wished that he'd gotten to talk to her after the show like he had planned that night, but she'd snuck out at some point while he was talking to Daria.

That thought caused his smile to deepen.

He'd been so energized that night that it had seemed like the most logical thing to do to call a girl he'd only recently gotten the phone number of that he had a juvenile crush on…or he just acted like a juvenile because of it, he didn't know anymore. He liked her.

He'd always liked her and it was only getting more real. When she was younger it was a flitting fancy, he'd imagined dating her, realized that she was astoundingly brilliant, but that they were worlds apart. As the time passed, he realized they were actually in the same world, but on opposite sides of it. Now, that world just kept getting smaller.

Daria was becoming less rigid in her expectations of people; he was growing up and recognizing that he needed to be an adult in more than name.

It all seemed so much more possible and real now.

He liked liking her. He liked the fact that she accepted his just wanting to talk after a show and she stayed up with him as long as he wanted. She'd been attentive. He hadn't felt like she was just throwing in an occasional "yeah" or "uh-huh" while she did something else.

Jane had commented to him the next day that Daria had admitted to enjoying their late night conversation as well.

He was glad. At the time, with the adrenaline coursing through him, it hadn't seemed like a big deal, but the self-doubts starting playing once he hung up with her. Were all of the times she'd asked him if he wanted to go hang out with his band her way of trying to get him off the phone? Was she upset that he woke her up and she was just trying to find a way to politely get him off the phone?

Dear God…did she think of him as nothing but Jane's older brother?

Jane had almost choked on her own saliva when he mentioned that one she started laughing so hard.

"Wind is 'Jane's Older Brother'," Jane had told him. "Hell, Wind is 'Jane's Brother'. To Daria, you're Trent. Yes, you're related to me, but that's not why she keeps you around."

Nick had let out a loud sigh of relief, pulling Trent from his wandering thoughts. "So, if it wasn't a renegotiation on the beer, then what did you guy's reconfigure on the payment?"

Quinn smiled at this, the first real smile to touch her lips since she'd gotten there. "I told Les that I could get you guys more than $55 each if we hosted a party in this basement and charged a cover. He knew that was true, so I proposed a door split to him. We settled on 25% of the cover for the night."

The dull looks on the other three band member's faces reminded Quinn that she wasn't talking to guys that had paid a tremendous amount of attention during math class in school. Expecting them to come up with the percentage off the top of their heads was expecting too much.

Hell, the only reason she could do it was because she needed to be able to quickly calculate sale costs when she outlet shopped. Knowing how much 25% off of a $350 pair of crushed purple suede knee high boots with fringe accents and a kitten heel really came in handy when trying to justify what a bargain it was to her parents. She was being frugal! She had saved them almost $88 by buying them off season…which was a faux pas she was willing to commit because they were really cute boots, and her willingness to take them off-season showed how strongly she felt about them. How could they argue the math and the fashion logic combined?

Now that she was thinking about that pair of boots, they had been really cute and she wished she'd worn them more than twice before she donated them to charity. She'd scuffed the side of one of them though and deemed them ruined.

It was another reason why she'd been glad that her parents cut her off after she got the hostess job. She had more of an idea of how money was earned and she was less willing to throw it away. If she was going to spend that kind of money on shoes now, she had to really be in love with them and plan on wearing for years.

"It comes out to be the band took in $1.25 for every person that was at the show that night," Trent explained to his band-mates. He'd tried counting the people while he was on stage, but he'd lost track of them – there had been too many and they'd been too energetic. He knew that 176 people had to show up in order for Quinn's gamble to pay off. He had been confident that at least that many showed up, it had seemed like a lot more than that.

"Right, well, there had been close to 600 people there the other night," Quinn told them. "587 wristbands were given out. Les said it was the most he'd ever seen at one show there, even when they hosted the Battle of the Bands they hadn't sold that many."

Max struggled to do the math in his head. "That's like almost $150 each for playing that show, right?"

Quinn nodded, "183 and some change." Quickly she passed out the presorted cash to the band members and stood up. "I've got to get going to work, I'm gonna be late if I don't leave now. I just knew you'd all be here right now and wanted to make sure you guys got your pay. I'll let you know when I have the next show booked for you and we can start promoting it."

Without waiting for goodbyes, she bounded up the stairs and out of the basement.

"That doesn't seem right," Nick stated, his forehead creased with his continued struggle at doing mental math. "Get me a pen and some paper?" he asked Trent.

The guitarist complied, standing up from where he crashed on the couch and finding a red sharpie and an old newspaper.

Nick glowered at the items, but the goateed man merely shrugged easygoingly and sat back down. Nick let it go and wrote on the newspaper. After a few minutes he looked at the rest of them. "Aren't we paying her? It seems like we should be. She didn't take any money."

Trent frowned. The subject of payment had never come up. He and Quinn entered the relationship as a favor to each other. She needed a project and he needed help. She'd never said she was going to become the manager for Mystik Spiral, so her percentage from handling them had never been discussed. He saw now that it was a very overlooked aspect of their relationship.

If she was his business partner then she needed to get paid for doing her job; if she was his friend, she needed to know that he appreciated her and allow her to share in the benefits of her labor. He considered her both.

She and her mom had dropped hundreds on a new wardrobe for him. They'd treated him like he was a member of their family. He knew that her family was a lot better off than his, but at the same time he knew that Quinn was struggling for independence from her parents. She'd dropped a lot of money on him and his band. He didn't know much about the business end of being in a band, but he was pretty sure the manager wasn't supposed to pay out of her pocket for them.

She paid her own way. She could use the cash just as much as any of them did.

She worked harder and smarter than any of them did.

"We're worthless pieces of shit and we're taking advantage of her," Max said flatly. Usually he liked to stick it to business minded people that tried to take art and make it into mainstream for profit bullshit, but Quinn was different. He liked her, he wasn't about to suck her dry and toss her aside. He had more class than that.

Trent nodded, "alright, so we're in agreement; she's our official unofficial manager and we have to give Quinn a cut."

Jesse hadn't spoken up, but Trent could see the emotion on his friend's face matched his own. She worked too hard for them to be cut out of the profit.

This was more than any of them had ever seen from a few hours worth of playing and they knew that it had only happened because she was passionate about helping them.

They were stumped. They'd never had to hire a band manager before, and now they had one that they weren't really looking for and they didn't know what they were supposed to do for her.

"So…do we like make her sign a contract, or something?" Nick asked, fiddling with one of the green spikes jutting out of his head. That seemed right to him. They told her that she was their manager and they all signed an agreement and she worked for them and got paid.

"We could ask," Trent suggested. "I don't think we could make her do it. She might not want to sign anything and get stuck with us."

That was a depressing thought for all of them.

* * *

><p>"Hey, hey, Trent, my man!" Jake Morgendorffer greeted the younger man later that evening as he answered the front door and found the musician on his doorstep.<p>

Fighting back the amused smile that this clueless guy always provoked in him, Trent responded with a casual, "hey, Mr. Morgendorffer. Is Quinn here?"

"Quinn?" Jake asked, the confusion evident in his voice. He knew that a lot of things got passed him, but he was always sure that Trent liked Daria, and that Daria liked Trent as well. If he had ever doubted that, then that night a month or so ago where Trent showed up drunk declaring that he had to talk with Daria, that he had to tell her that he loved her, that he couldn't stand her not knowing anymore, solidified in his mind Trent's feelings towards his eldest.

Trent smiled slightly, "yeah, your other daughter? The one I didn't make a drunken ass out of myself over."

He had very vague memories of that evening that had started such a dramatic change in his life. They'd come back to him in fleeting bits, making him wonder how much of it was real and how much of it he was making up. He was fairly sure that he remembered that Jake had ushered Helen out of the room, asking that he be allowed to handle this one. She had tried to fight him, but Jake had promised that he'd handle it. Trent had appreciated that. Helen would have killed him, he was pretty sure.

Trent didn't remember much of what Jake had said to him after Helen left, but he got the feeling that Daria's dad just wanted her to be happy. It wasn't a warning to stay away from his daughter, it wasn't a stamp of approval on him pursuing her. The parts of the conversation that Trent remembered simply seemed to be Jake saying he wanted whatever was best for his daughter, whatever she decided that was.

A month ago and Trent would have thought it was a warning to stay out of Daria's life. Now…he got the feeling that Jake just wanted him to make Daria happy or to get out of her life. He had every intention of doing the former.

"Quinn your d…Trent is here!" Jake called up the stairs, still baffled on this.

He kind of remembered Helen saying something about the two hanging out. Something about Quinn trying to be a good influence.

Quinn walked down the stairs with both of their day planners in her hand. She stopped at the door and looked the musician up and down. "God, dad, are you kidding?" She asked in her snidest high school voice with feigned disgust upon her face, winking at the musician before walking towards the living room.

Trent coughed into his hand suppressing the chuckles of amusement that were overtaking him at this reminder of the first time he had met Quinn. He thanked the utterly confused Jake for getting his daughter downstairs before following the girl into the living room where she was sitting on the floor next to a large round table.

Some of the tension he'd felt around Quinn the last couple of days had faded with her little act at the door. He appreciated her ability to mock her former self. He hoped one day he'd feel so gracious about being a narcoleptic mess.

"Helen!" He heard Jake frantically shout and the front door shut loudly.

He almost felt bad for the lawyer for having to explain to her husband what was going on. Trent was sure it had been discussed before, but Jake appeared to only hear what he wanted to hear. It was weird how Jake had always seem to parallel him. They were both slightly oblivious to the goings on around them unless it affected them directly, they were both in love with a woman far more ambitious and put together than they were, they were both struggling to have independent careers in a field they loved and failing miserably, and they both cared about the people in their lives more than they could ever hope to express.

He liked Jake.

Looking around the living room, he couldn't help but realize how different his and Daria's lives had been. Her home was so clean and organized, it was so well matched and seemed like it came out of a catalog. Her parents, though slightly neurotic, were always there, always willing to make time for her if she needed it, always encouraging her to better herself.

He couldn't remember the last time he saw his parents. He was pretty sure his dad had stopped over for a night a few weeks back, but he wasn't a hundred percent on that. He thought he saw him in the house while he was on his way out, but that might have been another homeless dude that knew the Lane's didn't lock their front door. It happened every now and then. By the time Trent got home later that night, whoever he'd seen on his way out was gone, so he hadn't expended much more thought on it.

He at least knew, kind of for sure, where his mother was. She'd called and mentioned that she was at a colony in Arizona a couple of months back. She'd been there for about five months now and hadn't been back to visit yet.

He wasn't worried, just slightly saddened that his family wasn't as close as the Morgendorffer's. Penny and Summer and Wind were off living their lives, but he knew when they needed help they'd all wander back home. It's what they did.

"Earth to Trent," Quinn called his ever-drifting attention back to her. When she realized that his focus was once more in the moment they were in, she began to tell him that she had found a studio that let band's record for only $75 an hour. It was in Lakeland, a neighboring community that was only about a half hour drive away. She figured the band could rehearse for a few more weeks, get their sound crisp and professional, then go in for the studio time, record a few songs as a demo, and then she could use that to help promote the band further by sending it to clubs and to labels, as well as uploading it for their fans to share on their networking page, and passing out freebies at their shows.

She was thinking that they would need probably $350-$400 for the studio, the blank CDs and the jewel boxes.

Trent was a little amazed at the research she had done. He'd recorded some stuff a few times at a studio in Lawndale, but it hadn't been well organized, and he'd traded the time instead of paying for it.

The way she spoke about it made it seem not only like a great idea, but like a realizable idea.

He found the more he talked with Quinn, the more things seemed possible that had only seemed like pipedreams before. It was like nobody had ever told Quinn that she couldn't achieve something. She seemed to have no concept of limitations on what she could do when she put her mind to it.

Trent figured it had to do with being cute. He'd been told by friends, by family, by teachers, and by random strangers on the street that he was a bum that would never amount to anything. It gets hard not to take it personal after a while.

In any case, he found her borderless enthusiasm and plans to be refreshing.

They talked for a while about plans for the band, him keeping her up-to-date on new material and new issues, her continuing to expand on ideas she was having.

Quinn was just starting to feel the familiar sense of ease she used to feel around him, when he suddenly changed the course of their conversation. "So, are we ever going to talk about it?"

She swallowed nervously and looked down at her planner, "talk about what?"

"How things got weird last week," he bluntly said, leaning back against the couch and looking across the table at the girl. He really wasn't one to let things go unspoken. It only left a lingering cloud over everything.

She tucked a chunk of hair back behind her ear as she fiddled with the pen in her hand. "Nothing to talk about, Trent. I freaked out for a minute over something stupid. I've got it under control."

He nodded and tried in a different way. "Cool, so you haven't asked me about Daria in a few days."

The expression on her face soured for a moment before she looked back up at him, "it seemed like you had a handle on that front so I've taken a step back…God, you didn't mess it up, did you?"

She surprised herself by being really concerned that he had managed to undo all of the work they had done to build him up in Daria's eyes. It was the first time in about five days that she'd actually felt that she was supposed to be getting the two together instead of having to remind herself that she promised that she would. It was good to feel that again. It was good to feel the desire to push these two socially inept people together to form an awkward and inept, but complimentary couple.

Trent chuckled, "I don't think so. She's worried about you."

"About me?" Quinn asked in surprise.

"Says you haven't really talked to her in a while, that you seemed mad at her the last time you did."

Quinn frowned, twirling with a strange of hair and tapping the pen against the table in her other hand. She hadn't really been fair to Daria this week. She'd been mad at her for liking Trent and being liked back by him. That was hardly Daria's fault that Trent was finally trying to do something about it.

"I'll talk with her and straighten everything out," Quinn announced.

"Good," Trent agreed. "Now, onto other business. The band and I talked about something after you left today. You really made us feel like selfish asses."

Her eyes widened at this, trying to figure out what she had done to make them feel that way.

He smiled at her in that lazy way. A month ago and she couldn't fathom what her sister saw in this guy, and now she knew, it was that damn half smile. "We talked about how we had never officially hired you and how you were busting your ass for us slackers while working a job and organizing my life. Hardly seems fair that you aren't getting paid when we do."

"I'm not in this for the money, Trent," she reminded him. "I'm in this originally because I like you and my sister together, and now also because I believe in your band."

He shrugged, "whatever. You have to eat too. We'd like to hire you. We were wondering if you'd be interested in having your mother draft up a contract with us so you'd be our official manager."

Quinn couldn't have been more surprised. She'd made the decision that she was their official manager after she had to skip the after party to discuss business with Les after the show. It had been implied by everyone, but no one had ever said anything about making it official before. "Y-you all want this? Including Max?"

She and the drummer had not gotten off to the best start. He'd made it clear with some glares and cutting commentary that he thought Trent was crazy to bring her into the band. Things had gotten better over the last couple of weeks, but she assumed he still felt a bit antagonistic towards her.

"Especially Max," Trent let her know with a laugh. "He was pissed to find out you didn't take a cut of what we got paid. Called us worthless pieces of shit for allowing you to work for us without paying you."

"What about you?" Quinn asked him hesitantly.

"What about me?" Trent questioned back, sincerely puzzled by the question.

Quinn rolled her eyes, "do you want me to manage your band? No matter what? If I sign a contract and you stop needing my help with my sister, I'm still going to be around. You're cool with that?"

"Don't be stupid," Trent scoffed, reaching over and mussing up her hair in an affectionate manner, smirking at the indignant squeak she let out at having her hair tangled by him. He had thought that his support of her being their manager was implied by his continuing to seek her out and hang out with her. He wanted her around. He thought that she was good for them. He thought that she knew that.

It was then that he realized that he'd been slacking off on his goal of helping her with her self-confidence. She wasn't the vain butterfly she'd been five years ago, and this new girl had no idea how to be valued for anything other than her appearance. She needed the assurance that she was appreciated for what she was doing, that her work meant something to them.

He had majorly let her down by not being more vocal in his encouragement of her.

She smiled at him, happy to know that the guys wanted her around. She had been feeling like she didn't belong, that they didn't care if she was there. It was nice to know that they all wanted her around. That Trent wanted her around.

She'd been worried that she'd be left behind after his life took off.

She'd been worried that they would hire a new manager, an experienced manager, after she did the work to get them in the door.

Things had changed so drastically in this last month. She couldn't believe that there were still two months to go until Daria and Jane came home.


	17. Coincidence?

Daria glanced down at her cellphone as it rang. Yes, her phone rang. It didn't play a song that she called a ring, it really rang. There was no pop tunes, no xylophones, no tubular bells – just a nice, basic ring. She really found most cellphone ringtones annoying, blasting unwanted and often just plain awful top 20 pop songs to the unsuspecting masses at generally inopportune times. The brunette genuinely missed the days of house phones and simple rings.

Though she did love the invention of caller ID, she decided, as she saw that it was once again Jason. He'd called a couple of times since they last saw each other and she'd ducked it each time.

It was weird. After they broke up, she had thought that they could maintain a friendship of some sort. She'd been able to with every other guy she'd dated, granted that was a short list and not at all the monumental conquest list that Jane had acquired since graduating high school. Her friend had taken college socializing by storm and had made very good acquaintances with a slew of men that struck her fancy at the time. Jane hadn't developed any relationships that were anything more than casual, but she seemed happy with that, so Daria didn't pry. It didn't stop her from worrying though.

Daria and Tom had remained friends though. The first guy she dated in college, Steven, was still one of her best friends. They'd had lunch together a couple of days ago with his new girlfriend, Becca. Daria liked her. She was intelligent and quirky, she had a unique outlook on the world, and she didn't mind her boyfriend staying in contact with his exes. She was secure in herself. Daria found her inspiring. She was aware that she wasn't a self-confident person, she could talk big at times, but deep down she wasn't that brave. Becca was, and Daria felt more confident just being around her.

Daria had passing friendships with the other boys in her life as well. Things hadn't worked out, but they hadn't worked out before they had gotten bad. It was her style to end things when she felt they were beginning to slip, when it stopped being fun and started becoming work. It made things less painful when they reached the eventual end. And it always reached an end.

Things were just different with Jason. She figured it was because he had gotten too serious too fast. She hadn't even realized that things were getting that serious until he asked her to move in with him. He had pretty much rang the death bell of their relationship.

Jane had laughed at that when Daria said it. They'd been sitting in their living room watching a horrible B-Movie and eating popcorn when Daria let it slip that Jason had proposed the idea of moving in together.

There was a long pause before Jane started laughing, "I thought he knew you!"

Daria pursed her lips, "hmmm, yeah, me too."

"You breaking up with him?" Jane had asked casually, glancing at her friend that sat beside her on the couch. It wasn't because she wanted her to break up with him, she liked Jason, it was just because she knew the way that her best friend thought, and knew that this development meant disaster for the relationship.

"Mrrrrrrrr…" Daria grunted unintelligibly.

Jane frowned slightly, recognizing that as an undecided vote on her friend's part, but realizing that while it was still undecided, Daria had already considered it and was weighing the pros and cons each way. That made the relationship as good as dead as far as Jane was concerned. If she didn't dump him now, she would find a reason to over the next couple of weeks.

Daria'd made the decision to dump him by the time the movie was over.

"We're just not compatible," Daria had told him simply as they sat on a park bench together the following day overlooking a small pond. It had been a beautiful day and she wished it hadn't been spoiled by this messy break up business, but she'd never been one to put off a break up when it crossed her mind to do it. "You're looking for a girl that is ready to move in with you and settle down…and I'm not there, yet. Maybe I will be one day, but for right now, I don't think it's fair to you to ask you to wait for me to be ready."

He'd begged, he'd promised not to pressure her, and he'd told her that he loved her.

The problem was that she didn't love him.

She wasn't sure if she ever could really love anyone, but she knew that if she ever did, it wasn't going to be him. They had fun together, he made her think and laugh and he made her feel special, but it was devoid of passion, devoid of heat.

He couldn't make her blush.

She frowned at that thought as she tossed the phone back onto her desk and turned her attention back to the History textbook that she was studying. Midterms were around the corner and she wanted to be prepared for them. It was hard to keep focused though when her mind kept traveling to Lawndale and a certain tall, dark and handsome musician that lived there.

A musician that could, and did, make her face flush with heat nearly every time he spoke to her. Without trying, Trent did.

When she was younger, she thought that any guy she had a crush on would be able to do that to her, but she was incredibly wrong. No other guy had ever made her feel like Trent did. She secretly hoped that no other man ever did.

Jane had been gloating for a few days over Daria's semi-admission to crushing on Trent again. No matter how many times Daria insisted that all she and Trent would ever be were friends, Jane would not stop celebrating and announcing how much she supported this union and how much she couldn't wait until she and Daria were in-laws.

At this point, Daria found that to be the only downside to marrying Trent.

It wasn't like she would have to deal with an overbearing mother-in-law.

With that thought, Daria felt a swell of pity for whatever men did end up marrying her and Quinn. She loved her parents, but she'd had years of practice dodging the minefields of their personalities. Any man that got involved with the Morgendorffer girls was going to be blindsided by the freight train that was her parents.

Focusing her thoughts, she resumed reading about the Reconstruction, the Industrial Revolution and the build up to the first World War. She'd learned all of this information a very long time ago, but like in high school she had to keep proving it to the education system. She could see DeMartino's bulging eye pulsating as he punctuated the importance of the rising UNIONS and the laissez faire ATTITUDE of a corrupt government that was looking to EXPLOIT the working class.

She missed DeMartino's classes. He was one of the only teachers she ever had that was passionate about what he did and was honest about it. He didn't sugar coat history and he didn't sugar coat their current realities or his feeling about their futures.

She didn't learn a lot from him about history, but she did respect him. She'd heard rumors that he'd been having stressed induced heart problems lately and that Li had asked him to retire. Daria imagined that didn't go over well.

Her studying was interrupted by the beeping of her cell phone signifying that she had a text message. She glanced at it and rolled her eyes as she saw it was from Jason. _"I need to see you"._

The last thing that she wanted was to see him. Their last encounter at the pizza parlor cemented in her mind that she didn't care to ever see him again. She'd tried the friendship route with him, but it was clear that he wasn't going to let her go gracefully and the last thing that she wanted in her life was a possessive and jealous ex-boyfriend that freaked out if he thought that she was going to get a new boyfriend. Not that Trent was her boyfriend. The nerve of Jason to criticize her for reopening the belly button ring and telling her it was because she had a pathetic crush on Trent again infuriated Daria to no end.

Okay, yes, she did have a crush on Trent again. She was through with trying to deny that to herself or to Jane, but it was not why she repierced herself, and even if it _was_ the reason that she did, what right did he have to pass judgment on her because of it? They were broken up, which meant that he no longer got a vote on what she did to her body or the reasoning behind her actions.

In many ways, Jason had been great for her, and she had thought that they got along well together, but she saw now that he would never be someone that was happy letting her be herself. He would constantly try to force her into this mold of what he thought the perfect woman was supposed to be, and she would resent him for it each and every day.

She had that habit of dating pretentious and self-righteous men that thought that she was their mental equal and that they could _fix_ her physical and psychological imperfections. Guys always seemed to thing that they could change her personality and her appearance because that was easy. It took years to build a mind that could challenge theirs, so they sought her out to fill that spot and then would put in the effort to reshape her appearance and attitude.

She was beginning to hate that mold. That mold that always reminded her that she and Quinn would make the perfect woman if they were ever fused, and the mold that reminded her that so many people preferred her sisters beauty and personality over her brains.

No matter how much Jane, Quinn, and Trent all told her that nothing was going on between Trent and Quinn, Daria still had the memory of the wall of guys that lined up to date her sister. Quinn was a magnet for men.

Trent had laughed the last time that Daria tried to casually mention it. He told her that he had a feeling that Max was more interested in Quinn than he was.

That caused a whole new worry for Daria.

She'd been around the band long enough to know that Max had a temper. She had seen him pound on guys that talked badly about the Spiral after a show. While he was generally a nice guy and she'd never had issue with him herself, she worried that explosive temper might turn on a girl that he was dating. Trent assured her that Max had never hit any girl that he dated and that he usually treated them like princesses.

It had made her feel better to get the assurance that Trent didn't think that he would hurt Quinn physically if they ever got involved.

Daria sighed and pushed the book away from her. Her thoughts were running too rampant on this evening to study. She just wanted to talk with Trent.

He was practicing with the band this night, but he told her that he'd call her afterwards. She wasn't expecting to actually hear from him. It was a late rehearsal and he knew that she had school in the morning. He'd probably send a text wishing her a good night, if he did contact her at all that night…and she was pretty sure he would.

The fact that she expected that much from him amazed her. Amazed her because they talked that much, and amazed her because she thought that he would remember that she was in school and he shouldn't call so late. A year ago…hell, two months ago, she wouldn't have given him that much credit.

And Quinn.

She'd known for a few years now that Quinn was growing up and becoming a decent human being, but she was really seeing the change in her sister now. Quinn was selflessly dedicating her time and energy to a band that produced music that she didn't like with band members that up until a month or so ago didn't realize that she existed outside of being "Daria's sister".

Daria never thought that she could attribute "selfless" to something that Quinn did. She hated to admit it, but she was waiting for the ulterior motive to be dropped. She just couldn't make herself believe that her sister took over a band that she'd never listened to the music of in the hopes of making them a success. It didn't make sense.

A lot of things about this arrangement didn't make sense to Daria, which was an odd feeling for someone that had been described as a genius for the vast majority of her life.

What she did know was that she and Quinn talked one night about how Quinn had run into Trent, and then she said that she was taking on an epic project. Quinn and Jane had begun to make Trent's name a daily part of her life, causing a feeling of extreme paranoia to overcome Daria. And then…and then Trent was a part of her daily life, not in name, but in being. He was actually in her life, talking with her, telling her about his day, asking about hers, laughing with her, seeking her advice on songs and life in general.

Was it a coincidence?

Was it a coincidence that around two weeks after Quinn first mentioned Trent to her that he was instituted in her life, a fixture that she looked out for and eagerly awaited the arrival of?

Daria didn't believe in coincidences. She didn't believe that Quinn taking over the band had magically brought Trent into her life.

She was being set up.

She was being set up with Trent…by her sister…and Trent knew it.

He was allowing her sister to run his life to get to Daria.

With that realization, she decided that she might kill them both.

"Gee, Quinn, it must be _so_ nice living at home with your parents still. I wish _I _could afford the luxury of taking time off from life to find myself," Sandi Griffin drawled in a highly condescending tone.

Quinn rolled her eyes and glared at the cell phone that she was talking into as she drove down the street before raising it back to her ear to continue the conversation with her "best friend". It had been cute in high school to address each other in these ways, but it was less endearing now. She'd grown so much since her junior year of high school, and from the sound of it Sandi hadn't grown at all. That was the difference, she supposed, of an eighteen or nineteen year old that worked and tried to make their own living, and an eighteen or nineteen year old that lived off of their parents support while going to school and never working a day in their life.

Quinn had mad respect for the students that did both, like Stacy and Daria, but she had no patience for Sandi's holier-than-thou attitude regarding where Quinn lived, when Sandi was still living off of her parent's financially. Sure, Sandi didn't live in her parent's house any more, but her parents were paying for her schooling and for her room and board while she was at school.

The hypocrisy killed Quinn, and it was the same hypocrisy she'd experienced with Sandi their entire friendship.

"Sandi, I'm not taking time off of my life and I'm not living off of my parents. I'm working two jobs that take up a lot of my time, I'm saving up enough money to move out and be completely independent from my parents. I didn't want to go to college until I figured out what I wanted to do with my life."

"Can you really live on your own waiting tables? I mean _I _couldn't imagine how demeaning it would be to wait on people and bring them food. And uniforms…ugh. You'll never catch me wearing the same thing as everyone else I work with." Sandi tried a different route.

Quinn frowned. In high school, when they were vying for the popularity crown, her and Sandi's sleights to each other were acceptable in their friendship, but Quinn wasn't competing with her any more and she didn't really find the constant putting down of each other that fun any more. It was childish and a sign of insecurity, and despite some shakiness here and there, she wasn't feeling that insecure anymore.

A month ago, Quinn hadn't felt like she knew what she was doing with her life, but now she felt that she had found a career. She was good at managing Mystik Spiral. The last five weeks of her life showed her that she was good at organizing people and communicating with businesses, that she had ideas and drive, and that other people respected this about her and wanted her around because of it. She wasn't interested in competing with Sandi anymore. They were on two completely different paths in life and trying to compete with each other now was pointless.

"Look, Sandi," Quinn began while getting out of her car and walking up the driveway to the Lane household. She could hear the band practicing clearly from the street and frowned as she realized the neighbors could too. She knew that the Lane's had always been bad neighbors, but frequent and consistent Mystik Spiral rehearsals were a new thing, and while she knew that the band needed the practice, she didn't think the neighbors would share the sentiment and let it slide for much longer. There were city noise ordinances after all.

"I waitress because it's good money and it pays for everything that I need. Is it a career choice? Not at all, and I don't plan on doing it for the rest of my life. However, if my other gig falls through and I do end up waitressing forever, well, there are a lot worse things that I could do with my life. At least it's hard, honest work and I don't need anyone else to support me."

Quinn entered the house and headed for the basement stairs.

"God, Q-uinn," Sandi began, ignoring her friends words, "what is that awful sound?"

The redhead smiled as the music stopped and a small cheer went through the boys when they saw her enter the basement. It was the first time she'd been to a rehearsal since they decided that they wanted to make her their official manager. She had brought the paperwork that her mother drafted up for them all to review and sign this evening, making them all officially covered in this situation.

"It's the sound of four men that I love very much doing what they love to do very much," Quinn answered to her friend. "Look, Sandi, it's been real talking with you, but I've got to go, I've got work to do and I'm holding up rehearsal."

Before the shallow brunette could respond, Quinn hung up the phone and tossed it into her purse.

"I don't know why you talk with her," Trent told Quinn as she sat down on the stairs. She'd explained her relationship with her high school friends to him one evening and he was really baffled by how such a cool chick could have such idiots for friends.

Quinn shrugged, "we have a lot more in common than I like to admit."

Trent nodded and gestured for Max to count them into the next song. Practice resumed and Quinn spent her time going over the responses she had received from club owners that she'd hit up in the surrounding areas about the Spiral playing their venues. Most places had said that they couldn't agree to have a band play there without first hearing a demo.

This put Quinn in a bit of a predicament. They needed the gigs to produce the demo, and they needed the demo to secure the gigs.

She was thinking that the only chance that they had of getting the money, other than borrowing it from family and friends, was if they advertised that they would be willing to do house parties. She knew a lot of their fans would be stoked to know that they would play relatively cheaply for parties; and if they band agreed to take any of the money that they received from the house parties and commit it to getting a demo made, then they could start securing larger gigs at clubs that paid more.

Business wise, it made sense to Quinn, but at the same time, she knew that the band relied upon the money that they received at every show they played to scrape by from week to week.

She started a list of things to discuss with the band once they were done playing. Included in it was finding a different rehearsal place, or talking with the neighbors to ensure no noise violation reports were made, and playing house parties for a cheap base rate while starting a fundraising platform at the parties to get the money to produce a demo. She figured if they "passed the hat" so to speak at parties then they might be able to get the money needed to pay the band for their efforts and get the money needed for the demo.

The amount of people clamoring for their demo online and in the local independent store told her that there were people willing to help get them set up. She just needed to market it correctly.

"You look busy, boss," Nick commented to her when the music stopped again between songs.

She looked up and smiled at the green spike haired man. That look was beginning to grow on her. "Just thinking about the best way to get you guys gigs and a demo."

"Let's take a break and talk about it," Trent suggested, putting his guitar down and sitting on the sofa. The others agreed and crashed around the basement, giving the younger girl their attention.

Quickly, she explained the Catch 22 that they had and her idea of advertising playing parties where they could essentially panhandle from their fans. There were mixed feeling from the band on that. Nick really needed the extra money that the paying shows gave him and the thought of playing a show for only about $15 a person concerned him. The time he spent with the band was time away from his kid. Sure, he and the mom didn't get along that well anymore, but he still loved his daughter very much and he wanted to be around her and he wanted to give her more than the mandatory child support the government said that she was owed.

Max was all for it. Of course, at this point he was on board with whatever Quinn thought that they should do. She had proven herself the most competent person in the band when it came to handling the actual business side and he was willing to leave their futures in her hands. She was family after all.

Jesse was quiet, mulling over what she was saying. He could see how it would be a good move for them, and it was better than Trent's barter and trade method of payment that wasn't getting them anywhere, but he worried about their fans not supporting them financially. It would be humiliating for them to play a show for so cheap and then not get any money for the CD from their fans. Plus, it would be embarrassing to ask their fans for money.

Quinn had laughed at his saying that and told him that she'd once started a collection of money in a cowboy bar by telling the guys there that she had gotten a bad impression of cowboys and might not want to ever date one. She could get their fans, fans that had proven to her that they were really into the band, to donate money.

On a serious note, she had told the band that unless they had someone that could scrounge together a few hundred dollars for them to create the demo, that there was really no way that they could get the gigs they wanted. She did mention that one bar had mentioned that they could come in and audition to play there if they didn't have a demo.

She'd set it up for them to go in the following Tuesday based off of all of their schedules of availability.

The guys agreed that they would go to the audition, and that they would consider the idea of playing parties and asking for donations.

Quinn wished that they had been more enthusiastic by the idea, but she understood where they were coming from. Playing house parties was something that they did before she came into their lives. They had gotten a first taste of moderate success and they weren't looking to go back to their roots. She hoped that they realized that it wasn't a step backwards though, it was a step sideways. It was completely different to play a show for a base price and hope that people enjoyed it than it was to play a show for a base price plus donations to a crowd of people known to love your music.

"A gig's a gig," Trent told her later as he lay on his bed watching television on mute and strumming his guitar while she sat in a desk chair that she'd put in his room for these meetings. "I'm cool with playing wherever you want us to, so's Max."

Quinn nodded and looked at the contract that was now signed and in her hands. It was for one year with the option of a longer contract once the year was up. She couldn't ditch the band now and they couldn't ditch her if they hit it big in this year and wanted to go with someone else. They were stuck with each other. She was happy with that.

"I don't want to upset Nick or Jesse, but I really don't see another way. I can't keep fronting the band money for fliers and stuff, and I definitely can't afford to pay for a demo for you guys. I don't make enough to support both my lifestyle and the bands."

Trent smiled, "I know, and we'll pay you back for the fliers. This wasn't ever supposed to cost you money. I'll talk with them and get them to realize that we need this. Hell, if the other night was any indication, we should only have to play two or three parties to pay for the demo, then we can start sending it out to clubs that will pay us real money to show up."

"You know, if you guys start touring, you'll probably have to do some free shows too, just to get the name out," Quinn let him know. She'd been doing a lot of research on how bands made it big and she knew that name recognition was a big one. Sometimes bands had to play the free shows just to reach a new audience.

He nodded and wrote down a lyric to a new song he was working on before continuing to play the guitar. "Yeah, I know. The Harpies are still out doing that right now. Don't know how they can afford to be gone this long, but Monique's smart and really business minded, like you, she's got them booked in states all along the eastern seaboard. Some free gigs, some paying. They're doing pretty well, too, haven't killed each other yet."

"Maybe when they get back, the two bands can do a show together," Quinn mused. She'd been exposed enough to the Lawndale rock music scene to realize that the Harpies following was pretty big. It would be good exposure for both bands to do a show together.

Quinn wasn't worried about putting Trent and Monique around each other. He'd made it clear to her that whatever romantic feelings they used to have were long gone and had faded into a good friendship.

Trent smiled at the thought. He and Monique hadn't shared a stage in a long time; it would be fun to do a show together.

"Yeah, I'll talk with her about it," he agreed.

They talked for a while longer before Quinn decided she should go home. Trent reached for his cell phone after she left.

"_Rehearsal went well tonight – thought of you the whole time, hope you had a good night studying. Good luck on your midterms!"_

In Boston, Daria half-smiled and half-frowned as her phone beeped next to her bed signaling the text that she received, waking her up from the sleep she had fallen into less than an hour before. She read the message and sighed.

It was hard to be mad at him when he was being so nice.


	18. How Good Bands Become Great Bands

Quinn was as, if not more, nervous than the band was the following Tuesday as she drove behind the Tank in her own car. She was serious that she was never getting into one of their vehicles again. The few times she had in high school were more than enough living on the edge for her.

She blared the latest top 20 hits on her radio as she drove down the highway to Briarwood. It was nice listening to pop tunes again after all of the time she had spent listening to hard rock music. She was really beginning to enjoy Mystik Spiral's sound, but none of it made her want to hit the dance floor like the good pulsating sound of club music. Sure, the lyrics were shit, but it had a beat and she could dance to it.

The thumping beat and the catchy, simple chorus kept her mind off of where she was driving and what they were about to do. The show at the Zon had been easy. Trent had already established a relationship with the owner of the place, the band was familiar with the venue, and the crowd knew the band relatively well. This was the first time she'd set up an audition for them, it was the first time that the newly improved Mystik Spiral would have to perform for owners of a club that had never heard of them and be judged on their merit.

She knew that she wasn't the one that was going to be judged, that it was up to the band to put forth their best effort and secure this venue for a future show, but that didn't calm her any. Quinn really cared about the success of this band. It was more important to her now than the inevitable relationship of her sister and Trent that had started her escapades with the boys in the band driving in front of her. Daria and Trent were on a fine path together, and she was sure that as soon as Daria and Jane came back into town that everything would fall into place for the two.

Her last conversation with Daria assured her of this. Daria had laid into her about messing with her life and for trying to make something happen that wouldn't ever happen. The tirade had lasted a good ten minutes where Daria laid out every point that she didn't need or want her sister interfering with her life and trying to set her up with a guy that had mutually decided with her years ago that they would never work out as a couple because they were too far apart in their ideas of commitment to ever last. It didn't matter if Trent was getting his act together, that didn't mean that they would automatically fall in love with each other and want to be together; a lot of years had passed since that time in her life.

When Quinn had merely responded with, "you're welcome, I love you, too, sis," Daria had fallen silent and let the matter drop. She knew that her sister still wanted a relationship with Trent and now she was given the opportunity for one. What Trent and Daria did with the chance in the long run was up to them, but she knew that Trent was in a place to go for it now when he never had been before. The rising success of his band and his personal growth in knowledge and the care that he was taking of himself showed that Trent was becoming someone that Daria could have a relationship with. That was all that she could really offer the two in a relationship.

She still gave Trent homework to further educate him. She recommended books he needed to read, made sure he was following with the latest politics and sociological issues in the world, and made sure that he studied history – a subject that Daria loved and knew a lot about.

In her last conversation with her, Jane had mentioned that Daria had re-pierced her belly button. Quinn had mixed feelings on that because she had been _so_ annoyed with Daria for taking it out the first time before she could get in trouble for it, but she also felt incredibly proud because it showed that Daria was willing to do something silly like that without doing it because of a guy telling her she should. It showed incredible personal growth, growth that meant that Daria was finally becoming secure in herself as well. Secure enough that she could date an extremely laid back man that didn't worry about small things.

Jane had also mentioned the extremely public final rejection of Jason that Daria did in a pizza parlor… and the subject that caused Daria to do it. Quinn was relieved to hear that. She didn't need an ex-boyfriend sniffing around Daria and getting her all confused, especially an ex-boyfriend that Daria had cared enough about to bring home and introduce to her parents. Quinn had really thought that Daria was serious about Jason at the time and that she would end up marrying him. She guessed she had been wrong about that.

It was definitely noted though that Daria hadn't mentioned either of these things to Quinn. The older sister was definitely paranoid now about her baby sister meddling in her life and was not offering up any information that could be used against her to further Quinn's cause. Thank goodness for Jane, otherwise Quinn would be blind on what was going on in Boston.

The drive to Briarwood was relatively short and easy; only about a 20-minute trek down the highway. The two vehicles parked side by side in the deserted parking lot of the nightclub, the spring sun beating down on them as they got out of the vehicles.

"You guys unload the equipment, I'll let them know that we're here," Quinn instructed, smoothing out her designer jeans and the navy blue v-neck short sleeved cotton top that she was wearing. Her hair was in a ponytail and she was wearing oversize dark sunglasses on her face and black flip-flops on her feet.

She knew that she did not look "alternative" enough to be hanging out with a rock band, but she wasn't about to become a "fashion don't" just because the guys that she hung out with lacked personal style. She would never be the ripped up dark clothes, pierced and tattooed kind of girl that they were used to hanging out with, and they seemed okay with her stylistic differences.

She guessed that was the difference between her old friends and her new friends. Her old friends cared about her surface and little about her actual person, while her new friends simply cared about her thoughts and personality, and couldn't care less about what she looked like.

She liked her new friends better, she decided.

Walking into the club she moved her sunglasses to the top of her head and looked around. There was a tall brunette woman in her mid-thirties wearing jeans and a white tank top with curly brown hair under a bright blue bandana drying glasses and chatting with the one customer sitting at the bar. Quinn took the man at the bar to be a regular that came in daily for a few drinks and bounced out before the place turned into a nightclub. He just looked the type. Weathered around the edges in slacks and a button down shirt, both being wrinkled and looking aged. He was an older gentleman, nearing his fifties would be Quinn's guess, but alcoholism made it hard to judge people's ages sometimes. Trent explained to her that every bar that was open in the afternoons and early evenings had at least one of these people, people that came in daily around the same time and ordered the same drink, they were always on first name basis with the bartenders, and they used the excuse that they went out to drink in public instead of sitting at home with a bottle as the explanation of why they couldn't be alcoholics, they were just social drinkers. Even if the only socializing they did was with the bartender that served them their poison.

It occurred to her that Trent had a very negative worldview at times.

"Gonna have to see some ID," the woman told Quinn as she saw her walk into the bar. She set the glass she was drying down and walked over to the side of the bar that Quinn was standing at.

Quinn mused that she had yet to get carded at the Zon even though she had sat at the bar during the whole of their last concert there. She supposed the bartenders just knew that she was with the band. "I'm not here to drink, I'm the manager of a band called Mystik Spiral, we're here for an audition at 2."

The woman looked her up and down, seeming surprised that this little girl was announcing herself as a manager of anything. She'd met plenty of band managers in this place, but never one that looked like she should be fronting an all girl pop group.

"Yeah, sure, I remember hearing about that. Go ahead and tell the band to set up their equipment on the stage over there. I'll let Chris know you're here."

Quinn nodded and walked back outside, putting the sunglasses down over her light eyes. It was one of the curses of being green-eyed, the sun wreaked havoc on her eyes, causing headaches and watering eyes and poor vision in general when dark lenses didn't cover them. Freckles and watering eyes, the sun definitely made her a catch!

"Set up on the stage inside," she announced to them, grabbing a couple of microphone stands and helping them carry them inside. A couple of years ago, Quinn Morgendorffer would never have helped carry band equipment without a decree from one of her parents threatening to cut off her allowance if she didn't. The times, how they were a'changin'.

The set itself went well, Quinn thought as she sat at the bar and watched the band perform twenty minutes later. She had calmed some from her nervous state when she realized it was only going to be the owner, the bartender and the one customer hanging out at the bar and watching the show.

The band seemed calm and they were treating it like they were having a rehearsal in the Lane basement. They laughed between songs and teased each other about any missed notes. Quinn watched the owner and realized that the general good nature of Mystik Spiral was working in their favor. No one liked to see a stressed out band and no one liked to see a band that couldn't laugh at itself.

She'd never realized that they had practiced showmanship before, but clearly this wasn't their first audition, just their first one with good material.

"Where are these boys from?" the regular asked her as he took a sip of the gin and tonic he was nursing. See, he was social. He was talking to the redhead at the bar, a young lady that he never would have met if he didn't go out to the bar. He only drank to meet new and interesting people. That didn't make him an alcoholic. It made him a connoisseur of people.

"Lawndale," Quinn answered with a smile, taking her cue from the band to be nice and friendly to everybody. She was a representative of them after all and didn't want the reason they didn't get the gig being because a creepy old drunk guy was talking to her and she reacted in disgust. He wouldn't be the first creepy, drunk old guy to strike up a conversation with her, she just hoped it didn't lead down the same awkward path that it usually did.

She was a lot less naïve about older guys now than she was when she was fourteen and it first started happening. It had been amusing then, a game to see how much she could get them to promise her if she kept on flirting. It wasn't until one of them had touched her rather inappropriately and tried to get her to back up that flirting that she realized that it was stupid of her to encourage such behavior in guys that she had no intention of ever sleeping with.

She was fortunate that Daria had been around at the picnic they were at and that she had intervened before anything could go any further than it had. Daria had been asked by Helen to go with Quinn to the annual Lawndale Lions cook off, and after a hefty bribe from the lawyer in the form of a new laptop for school, had begrudgingly agreed. Quinn had been seventeen at that time and Daria had been home on spring break from her first year of college. The nineteen year old Daria had put herself between Quinn and the man that was in his thirties and warned him to back off of her underage sister. Daria was short and didn't look like a fighter in the least, but Quinn knew that her sister had an unnerving voice and stare that made lesser people cower. He proved to be a lesser man.

The man had given the customary insults to Daria about her just being jealous of how hot her sister was and had told her that Quinn really wanted to be with him.

Daria had responded by turning to Quinn, "do you want to screw him or do you want him to leave you alone?"

"Leave me alone," Quinn whispered, her face flushed with embarrassment that this was happening. High school boys fighting over her was cute and endearing, but this guy that had fondled her and was currently insulting her sister was not cute at all. She could see several people standing around and watching the event, but no one was stepping up to help Daria get this man that should know better away from the high school senior. That was Lawndale, Quinn supposed. Nothing ever happened, so everything slightly unusual was a show.

Daria was a constant show in that place. Quinn didn't blame her for never wanting to come home on visits.

The man had spit on Daria, calling her an ugly, pathetic whore and calling Quinn a tease before walking away from the two sisters.

Since then, Quinn hadn't been as much of a tease. It had become a lot more real to her that having men want her came with the price of some men trying to act upon that. It hadn't happened with high school boys and she saw that until then she'd been incredibly lucky with the college boys, waiters, that reverend guy, the bellhop at that one hotel, the cowboy and every other guy that she had batted her eyes at just to see what they would do.

This situation in the bar was different though, and Quinn knew that. This guy was lonely and just wanted to talk in general. He wasn't hitting on her, she was just someone to talk to.

"Lawndale, huh? Yeah, they're not bad. I can see kids liking them," he told the owner.

The owner smiled slightly at that. "What's the normal pay for these guys?" He asked Quinn as he stood in front of her on the other side of the bar.

She took a sip of the water she was drinking, "the Zon in Lawndale pays them 25% of the cover price and charges $5 a head."

"The Zon's ripping you off," Chris answered, his brown eyes dancing in amusement. He was about sixty and had heavy wrinkles on his face. He was heavyset with heavy tattooing up and down his arms. Unlike Les, he wasn't trying to look like a rocker gone business man, he just looked like a casual guy that happened to own a bar. "The venue should never make that much more than the band, unless the band's doing a free show for advertising, of course. Local band like them that seems to get the name out doesn't need to do free shows this close to home. I've always felt that the bar makes more money off increased drink sales than they do off of the cover price."

"You offering more?" Quinn asked coolly, trying not to sound too eager.

Chris shrugged and watched the band some more. "The leader, what's his name?"

"Trent. Trent Lane," Quinn answered. "He writes the words; the second guitar, Jesse Moreno, writes the music. They're pretty great together."

"Well, Trent has really good stage presence, he seems really comfortable up there."

Quinn laughed at the observation, "Trent's pretty comfortable no matter where he's at. Sometimes a little too comfortable. They're very laid back guys."

Chris smirked, "that why they have you? Someone have to be the business minded one?"

"It was an accidental union," Quinn admitted. "They weren't looking for a manager and I wasn't looking to become one, but…different circumstances kinda pushed us together. The results were good, so we decided to make it permanent. We all work well together and it's a mutually beneficial relationship."

"I spoke with Les," Chris told her. "He told me to keep an eye on you because you were a shark."

Quinn looked surprised by that. Not more than five minutes before he'd told her that the Zon was ripping them off, now he was saying that he knew Les personally. "I wouldn't say I was a shark, just a little more persistent than he's used to from the Spiral. I just want to make sure my boys are well taken care of. They do the same for me."

The man nodded, "it's good when a band can trust their manager, and vice versa. There are plenty of people looking to screw over musicians and unfortunately it's usually the people they trust the most doing the most damage, believe me, I know from personal experience. Les does too, which makes me a little surprised he doesn't offer talented bands more. I can offer you a 50/50 door split. I usually do more for local bands, but that's because I know them and know the kind of crowd they can turn out, I'm not so familiar with Lawndale bands. Les says they just recently started drawing a crowd, but that it has been large ones lately."

Quinn thought the offer was more than generous, and she would definitely be talking with Les about the split that he was offering her, that 25% that she had haggled for wasn't looking so good right now. "We're definitely agreeable to those terms. What night would be good for you? We'd like at least a couple of weeks to advertise it and build up the hype with our Lawndale fans, as well as spread the word out here in Briarwood."

The manager and the venue owner pulled out their calendars and compared availability, finally deciding on a Friday night in a little over three weeks. Quinn wrote down the date and the time and made sure she wrote down the agreed upon door split. She didn't want any confusion later when she went to pick up their pay.

Marketed correctly, this could be a huge payday for the band.

Once the date and time were agreed upon, she signaled for the guys to wrap it up and join her. They came over and each bought a beer while the owner shook their hands and thanked them for the audition before wandering back into the office and shutting his door.

"Couldn't help but see you guys comparing notes, boss," Nick began after everyone was served with their choice of beer. "We get the job?"

She confirmed this and the band cheered, hugging her and thanking her for getting them the audition. Quinn didn't want to tell them that she hadn't done much. She was pretty sure Chris has been sold on hiring the Spiral since he talked to Les about them.

"Better than just a gig," she told them, then filled them in on the actual take that they would be getting out of the show. "The better we market this, the better your guys' pay day will be."

Nick started doing the math in his head, if 600 people showed up for the show like they did to see them at the Zon, and if Chris charged $5 a head like Les did, then that would be $3000, the band would take home $1500. Quinn would get 20% of that. His mental math faltered here. 10% of 1500 was 150, so 20% must be $300. That left $1200…and then he realized that Quinn was getting an equal share to the rest of the band.

He wondered if anyone else had realized that 20% was an equal share. Probably Trent and Max, they were pretty good at math and had both seemed adamant that Quinn be an equal partner in the band. He doubted Jesse knew or cared how much she got, instead just being glad that they were getting decently paying shows. Nick was cool with it too, just surprised that it meant that he was making 20% now instead of 25%.

Still, the 20% he made with Quinn running things equaled a hell of a lot more than the 25% he made when Trent was running it. He raised his glass as a toast was called in Quinn's honor.

The redhead laughed at this, and tapped her water glass against their beer pints.

While waitressing was definitely paying better at this point, she got significantly more out of managing a band. She just wondered if she was doing everything right. She'd never had an aspiration to be a band manager and had just been winging up til this point, doing what she thought needed to be done with no real concept of what was actually expected of her.

Things were getting serious though, she could tell that they were. There was a new pride and strength in the band, a determination to be more than they ever had before. The more serious they got about things would definitely mean the more on top of things she would have to be.

It's like when she started out as a hostess at Governors Park, and then as they got to know her and she got more respect in the place, they made her a waitress, which was a lot more work and it was a lot more money. She wanted to quit after that first summer, but they agreed to work around her school and social schedule, so she stuck with it for the extra spending money. She hadn't really moved from it since then.

That's why she could see how the years had gotten past Trent and the rest of the band. Time moves so quickly when you're comfortable at a place. Then one day you wake up and you're old and the rest of the world moved on, but you were left trying to play catch up.

The girl put her water glass down and looked at the counter while the guys continued to animatedly celebrate to the amusement of the bartender and the regular that was still sitting there, the latter striking up conversation with whatever person looked at him for more than a second.

Quinn knew that if she failed at this, if she messed up, it would be the careers of these four great guys that had given her a chance that would suffer. She couldn't have that on her head. Studying had never been her strongpoint – well, studying anything that wasn't fashion had never been her strongpoint – but she was determined that she would buckle down and become the best damn band manager that she could be.

She would learn everything that she was supposed to be doing, she would learn acceptable pay rates, she would learn about relationships between managers, promoters, venues, band members, groupies, and whoever else was involved in making sure a good band became a great band.

She would do this because these guys made her feel important, and she wanted to make them important to the rest of the world.


	19. Holding On To What Matters

It had occurred to Trent, as he crashed out face first on top of his comforter in his room, that he and Daria hadn't talked on the phone in a while. She'd texted him back a couple of times over the last few days, but she hadn't answered or returned any of his phone calls, nor had she initiated any text conversations. When he mentioned it to Quinn, the redhead had nervously laughed and said that she couldn't be expected to know all of the workings of her sister's mind.

He had a feeling that she knew more than she was letting on.

He missed talking with Daria. It had only been three days since he'd heard her voice, but it was three long days for him. Now that they had a show to do at a club he hadn't ever played before, he really felt like he needed her support. He needed to know that she was in his life and that she believed in him.

"_I really want to talk to you, please call me,"_ Trent texted her that evening after he was home from the audition in Briarwood.

Less than ten minutes later, his phone rang and he saw that it was Daria. His heartbeat sped up at the thought of talking with her and he chastised himself for having this reaction. He'd never really been nervous about talking with a girl before. Five years ago he found it amusing that Daria got nervous while talking to him. If this was how he had made her feel all of those years ago, he didn't blame her for coming off as such a neurotic mess.

"Hey Daria," he greeted her easily.

"Trent," she said back simply. He could hear the edge in her voice and realized that she was upset…with him. He didn't know what he had done, but enough conversations with women, including Jane and Monique let him know that tone.

He groaned, not really wanting to deal with an irate female, but knowing he had no choice now, "oh man, what'd I do? I didn't forget your birthday, that's in July. We don't have an anniversary for me to have forgotten. I didn't sleep with your sister…or your mom, that was another chick, and I don't want to have _that_ conversation again."

"What did you want to talk about?" she asked, ignoring his questions. He could hear her turning the page in a book and realized that she was probably still studying for midterms. She was a perfectionist about her grades, he remembered that from when she and Janey would study together. He also remembered that from that project she had wanted his help on. Creativity had never struck. He still felt badly about disappointing her on that, but it had really shown him that he and Daria would never work out.

He wanted it to at that time, but he realized that she was way too rigid and well put together for him to ever be compatible with. She had goals and expectations of other people, and he floated through life without a care. He had never wanted to be someone that others were dependent on. It's why the Spiral did so poorly the first half a decade or so. He wasn't ready to have others look up to him.

Daria needed people that she could count on for the little things as well as the big ones. They would make each other miserable.

She would pressure him to be more than he was, he would stay out til all hours of the morning just to piss her off for being such a controlling nag, which would make her bitch more, which would make him rebel more. They'd destroy anything good that they liked about each other while trying to mesh together two different life philosophies.

He had seen a scary vision of their future. Her working double shifts at a job trying to support him and their kids while he dicked around with his band and got fat. They were miserable.

He wasn't going to allow that to be either of their futures. So he had made it clear to both of them that they should never get together. It had hurt to do so, but he knew at the time that they would be better off in the long run away from each other.

Remembering that, he had to wonder if he was crazy for instigating this long distance relationship with her now. While she wasn't physically around him enough to nag about his poor habits and he couldn't really annoy her by being an extreme slacker, they would eventually have to face the bad about each other that destroyed every other relationship they had ever tried as well as the good that brought them together, and that's when things went downhill.

He wasn't good at relationships.

Though, if he looked at the track record, neither was she.

He thought for a second, "I really wanted to talk about how Quinn landed us a show in Briarwood that's giving us 50% of the door split…but now I kinda want to talk about why you're mad at me."

Daria rolled her eyes at the mention of Quinn. She was still highly annoyed with her sister for interfering with her life, and she was just as annoyed with the guy that had asked her to do it instead of just having the guts to strike up a conversation with her on his own. Daria hated feeling like everyone in her life was conspiring against her, she hated feeling like she was being talked about, and she hated feeling like she was being left out of a huge secret. "I'm mad because you won't be honest with me."

Trent's pulse sped up again. He was not ready, in any way or form to talk completely honestly with Daria about how he felt about her. He was not ready at all to tell her that every time he thought about her, he smiled. That every time she spoke, his blood raced in excitement. That every time he saw her, he felt like the world, crazy as it was, made sense. There was still so much he wanted to accomplish before he attempted to convince Daria to date him, to feel for him again like she used to before she gave up on it as a teenage fancy gone by.

"Honest about what?"

"I'm also annoyed," Daria continued without answering his question, "that you seem to think that I'm stupid. Really that you, Jane, and Quinn all seem to think that. I'm not sure when I started giving off village idiot vibes, but clearly, I have been because everyone thinks that I'm ignorant to what is going on around me."

"No one thinks that, Daria," he answered quickly. While he was glad that she was talking with him, this isn't exactly how he imagined the conversation going. If he had known that this was going to be on the plate for the evening, he probably would have eaten a different meal, so to speak.

Daria glared at the phone for a second, "now you're not being honest again. You all must think that I'm an idiot, or else you wouldn't have possibly thought that I wouldn't figure out that Quinn and Jane were dropping your name every chance they got, that my sister took over your band, and that Jane has been doing everything she can to sell me on improving my self-esteem and my physical appearance, and then suddenly you were back in my life and in a way that you hadn't ever been before. We were never that close before, Trent. And I don't believe in coincidences. I believe that people make things happen. I believe that Jane and Quinn were working together to get you and I on a regular talking basis. What I want to hear from you, the assumed mastermind of this little scheme, is why?"

Well there it was. While Trent appreciated honesty in every aspect of his life, he was a little surprised to have the honest subject dropped on him. He should have figured that Daria would take the initiative to sort everything out. After all, she had confessed to Jane right away about kissing Tom; and then she dumped Tom. She might not have liked confrontation, but when something was wrong, she stood up for what she believed in.

"I missed you."

There it was, he said it. Not all of it. It wasn't the drunken confession he had made to her parents by any stretch, but it was a simple and honest truth. He had missed her, so he had conspired with his and her sisters to bring her back into his life, and he didn't regret it. Was it the most mature way of getting a girls attention…probably not, but did it work…

"You missed me?" Daria echoed back, the anger leaving her voice and instead just sounding incredibly confused.

She had figured, based on their conversations and the subtle flirting that he had been doing with her, that he had somehow developed a crush on her, but she was still surprised to hear it. Part of her had told herself that she was being crazy for thinking that he liked her. He would always be that older rocker bad boy that her mother screamed at her for hours on end about liking before letting loose some information about her own sexual exploits from her younger days that Daria never, ever, EVER needed to know about.

"Simple as that," he agreed. "I missed talking with you and wanted you back in my life."

Daria scoffed and shook her head, "I think you missed the part where I said that we were never that close, Trent."

He was quiet for a moment, "that hurts."

"That's the truth," Daria answered without malice in her tone. "Everyone knows that I wanted it to not be true, and I don't think you're so oblivious that you didn't know that although you pretend to be so well, but we both faced facts three years ago on this. We agreed a thousand times over that we weren't compatible. Not on anything that matters."

"I think we've been doing pretty good, up until this conversation that is," he retorted as easily as he could, walking down the stairs from his room and into the kitchen for a beer. No matter how this conversation ended, he knew that he was going to need to have some sort of alcohol in him. Everything had been going so well with her, he wasn't even sure how they ended up in this relationship defining conversation. "I know more about you, I think than anyone other than Janey does. You know more about me than anyone."

They had talked so much over the last month. Talked about anything and everything that came into their heads, because they liked speaking with one another. The last time he had talked with her, they'd had a lengthy discussion on the merit of Spinal Tap setting a bar for all rock musicians since to overcome. He'd thought that the movie was a hack job, she thought that the honesty in it hit a little too close to home for him.

Looking at the guys he was in a band with, he could see why she would argue that point.

Lighthearted bantering over stuff that didn't matter.

This relationship though did matter.

Daria chuckled lightly, surprising him with the sound. He wasn't expecting her to laugh. "Tell me about the show that Quinn landed you," she requested.

He was perturbed by the sudden change, but just as grateful to end the conversation. Without hesitation he spilled forth about the upcoming show, about the actual audition, which songs they played, why they auditioned, their plans for getting their demo recorded by playing house shows – they had officially decided by a majority vote that it was a good idea – and any other subject he could think of to keep the conversation going forward and away from her initial anger.

To her credit, Daria was as enthusiastic as she ever was about what he was talking about, responding with insights that let him know that she was actually listening to him and not just letting him talk to get it out of his system while she waited to find a weak point to attack him at.

It was like she had never brought up the awkward conversation and they had just fallen into their normal pattern of talking about

A few hours later, the conversation was winding down. Trent could hear her yawning and knew that she needed to get to bed soon. "Daria, are we cool?" he asked her quietly.

"Well, one of us is," she agreed easily.

He coughed as he laughed, "which one?"

"Still trying to figure that one out," she said. "Talk to you later."

"Later, Daria," he murmured, hanging up the phone.

She tossed her phone down on her desk and frowned. This would just not do.

There are always moments in your adolescence that seem poignant and life altering, and while age had taught Daria that most of the things she thought were earth shattering when she was in high school really didn't mean much, she held fast to the belief that the conversation she had with Trent in the Pizza Prince after that unfortunate project for O'Neil was real.

There had been subtext there. Subtext where he told her that maybe it wasn't a good idea that they got together…and she had agreed. For the first time since she met him she had agreed that they would never work.

She'd always known it, that was obvious, but she'd never _believed _it and had it resonate so truly as in that moment. Both she and Jane had given up on the idea of a Daria/Trent relationship after that day – though Jane's attentions were diverted from that point on by Tom, and then Daria's attentions were diverted onto Tom.

That wasn't the point.

The point was that they had one moment, one meaningful moment where they let go of the dream and just agreed to accept each other as people.

She had accepted Trent, with all of his imperfections, since then, as her acquaintance and as her best friend's brother.

While their relationship had changed over the last month or so into a solid friendship, she wasn't ready for the acceptance that she felt for him in that moment in the Pizza Prince to be gone.

It would be if they stated dating.

They would start expecting things of each other. She would start expecting things of him. She would expect him to be reliable and dependable, she would expect him to be faithful and honest, and she would be upset if he couldn't do it. The disappointment she felt at his failure to produce 30 seconds worth of music would be dwarfed if her vision of him not waking up in time for their wedding came true.

Daria could handle where they were at right now – good friends that supported each other and talked on a regular basis. Sure, over the last month she had toyed with the idea of her going back to Lawndale for a week around her birthday and her and Trent having a whirlwind romance where they determined that they would make the relationship last across the miles that spread between them.

Now that it looked like an actual possibility, she was less sure it was what she really wanted. She couldn't handle having to depend on him and face the subsequent disappointments, and she was determined to make sure that didn't happen.

She'd never had to come up with a way to discourage a guy from liking her, or at least, she'd never really tried even though she probably should have, so she wasn't really sure what she should do. It would be easy to be brutally honest with him, to cut him down and make it clear that they would never work, but the fact of the matter was, she liked Trent.

She liked him as a friend, and admittedly as a lot more than that, but it was the friendship that she didn't want to lose.

Thinking back over every bad movie that she and Jane had ever watched, she realized with a groan what she had to do.

She had to wonder when her life became a B-movie.


	20. The Lane Less Traveled

For a change in their routine, Trent and Quinn were holding their management meeting at the Morgendorffer household. She had decided that she wanted to talk about the band and current events while multitasking by planning her wardrobe for the show.

Trent was lying on Quinn's bed, her door opened so Helen wouldn't freak out, while the fashion queen stood in front of her mirror trying to decide what outfit she wanted to wear for the show in Briarwood that weekend. He was working out some lyrics to a new song while he offered uneducated opinions on articles of clothes she held up. He had no idea what the difference between lilac and lavender was and could not offer an opinion on which lilac or lavender top would go best with her new olive green pencil skirt and platform sandals.

She seemed happy just to have a sounding board though and didn't mind his feeble attempts at answering her questions. He was glad that she wasn't getting upset by his truly ignorant answers.

Art was Janey and Penny's strong points. They knew the color wheel better than anything else in the world, and would have both been great at advising the redhead on which colors worked best together, which ones would compliment her hair and skin tone, and which ones would make her eyes stand out best.

He vaguely remembered Janey getting suckered into such an endeavor when he had stayed over that one time. He'd heard them discussing it before he had snuck into Daria's room with the thinly veiled excuse of needing to borrow Janey's toothbrush.

Of all of the Lane siblings, Trent was definitely the worst choice to make color decisions. Hell, even Summer had a better eye for art than he did. She had wanted to be a fashion designer before she got saddled with the first two kids and the first husband. She had tried to make it work and continue her creative work, but the second two kids and the current husband drained her of the time and the energy.

He vaguely remembered Summer being happy, but it had been a long time since then. The last time he had seen her was a couple of months ago when her youngest daughter, April, had shown up at the Lane's door, and Summer had to come and collect her. His eldest sister had seemed tired and defeated. He'd felt badly for her. She wasn't a bad mom, she was just raising four children that had the same independent nature that all Lane's had – and she cared that they disappeared and bothered to come collect them.

He wasn't surprised by the arrival of any of his nieces or nephews. Of course her children would wander. They were Lanes and their grandparents set a pretty impressive example of what the world was like when you stopped carrying about those around you and just did what made you happy.

Penny had taken off in her childhood at least ten times to attend various political rallies or demonstrations. She would be gone for months at a time, then show up at the house espousing political views about the US's foreign policies and their abuse of the Central American nations. When she was nineteen, she had taken off to save the third world Central and South American countries by selling her hand made crafts.

As far as he was aware, she had been banned in at least three countries down there for her work in liberating sweatshop workers, her vocal opinions about the regimes, and just generally being a pain in the ass.

He didn't worry about Penny, she was harder to crack than a diamond.

Jane had once trekked up to New York City by herself when she was eight just to see an art exhibit in some museum before she caught a bus back to Lawndale. During her teen years, before she met Daria, she had taken off several more times, but she always told him where she was going. It occurred to her that her older brother seemed to care, so she always gave him an itinerary of where she was going and when she would be back.

Wind had run away with several girls when he was a teenager, only to have them decide that he was wasn't what they were looking for in life and came back home. Wind went wherever lust that was mistaken for love took him. He'd been doing it for fifteen years now and Trent doubted it was going to change anytime soon. His brother was so desperate to have someone fill a mothering role that Amanda never had that he blindly jumped into marriage only to be devastated when the women wanted a partnership, not a child to take care of.

Summer and Trent had never been much of wanderers as children, but their parents sure as hell were.

Summer had stuck around Lawndale until she had taken off with her high school boyfriend when she found out she was pregnant and she had done everything in her power since to avoid coming back to Lawndale. Sure, there were times, especially after her divorce, that she came and stayed at the Lane household for a few months, but as soon as she felt herself strong enough, she was out of that town. She hated Lawndale. She hated that her parents were never around, she hated that she had been left in charge of her four younger siblings while her parents went out to explore the world, and she hated that nobody in that town gave a damn that the Lane children were neglected and should have been taken by CPS before Trent and Jane were even born.

So, she tried to be normal. She gave up on her fashion goals in exchange for becoming a wife and mother and she did what she could to make it work. Her kids always had a home to come back to, which they seemed as desperate to get away from as she was to get away from Lawndale.

The only one of his siblings he pitied was Summer. She hadn't stood a chance.

Trent didn't wander. His most adventurous childhood adventure had been camping in the backyard hoping that someone would notice or care that he was missing. He didn't know why he thought that they would when his parents had never bothered to chase down Penny when she left for weeks on end and weren't even in town when Janey took her big city adventure. He doubted they even knew she did it, although he had been worried sick when she didn't come home from school that day.

It seemed crazy to say, but he was the most stable of the Lane children. He had always felt that someone needed to stay and look after their home. Someone needed to be there to make sure the others would have a place to come back to when their current treks were over with.

Trent was the self-appointed lighthouse shining the way home to the rest of his family. No one appreciated the role that he had put himself into, and he was beginning to resent it more and more.

The last three weeks had been great business wise, but miserable emotionally for Trent. He and Daria still talked. He'd been worried after that phone conversation where she called him out on being a coward that they wouldn't talk again. However, they still had long conversations about almost everything. There was a wall though that was being built up, he could feel the difference.

She was pulling away from him.

Jane had mentioned to him, in a rather enraged phone conversation where she cursed Daria out for her audacity and had cursed Trent out for being such a moron that couldn't just tell Daria how he felt, that Daria had gone out with a guy named Mike a couple of times that week. Daria hadn't mentioned it to Trent, which hurt. It hurt because she was seeing someone and it hurt because they talked about everything, and she wasn't talking about this.

He had to hear it from Janey.

The redhead hadn't seemed concerned when he told her about it. She had rolled her eyes and told him that Daria was being stupid because she didn't like people trying to control her and she was trying to rebel against what everyone knew was best for her by pretending to see some other guy. She was convinced that there was no way that her sister started seeing some guy at the same time that she found out that Trent had been crushing on her and had arranged for himself to be instituted into her life.

She had advised Trent to carry on like normal, but to amp up the flirting a bit just to shake Daria's cage. If she seemed to get flustered by it, then it meant that Daria still cared about him; if she told him to stop and seemed irritated by it, then that meant that Daria had moved on, but still wanted to salvage a friendship with Trent; if she ignored the flirting altogether, it meant that Daria didn't want the friendship at all and was only taking the phone calls because she didn't know how to get rid of him.

She still got flustered.

He decided to trust Quinn's relationship know-how and just let Daria work out her hurt at people manipulating her however she needed to before she was ready to face that Trent really did care about her and wanted to be with her. It hurt though, he wasn't going to pretend like it didn't. She had accused him of treating her like she was an idiot, but then, if Quinn was correct, Daria had turned around and started her own game that was meant to make him feel idiotic.

Quinn, in the meantime, had given little thought to her sister's pathetic attempts at rebellion. She knew that her original job had been to get Trent and Daria together, but the band had become so much more of a pressing matter, and one that she felt could really benefit from her help at this point. Daria and Trent would be fine once they stopped playing games and really started talking to each other. Being face to face would fix all of this. She had no doubts that Daria had made up this Mike character in an attempt to hurt Trent and to prove to Quinn and Jane that they could not manipulate her into dating someone that she wasn't ready to.

Quinn was not even going to acknowledge this pathetic attempt of defiance on Daria's part.

The Spiral however was working on a deadline. The three weeks had flown by for Quinn as she struggled to make sure everything was going well for the band.

In addition to scheduling them to play five different house shows within this three week span, she had rearranged the template for the band flier that Jane had made for Mystik Spiral followed by pounding the pavement to get the flier posted everywhere she could, passed out fliers at the local farmer's market, went to other shows at the Zon and McGrundy's to pass out fliers there to a likeminded crowd, encouraged their online fanbase to get out and spread the word, bribed the fanbase with the promise of a Mystik Spiral demo if enough people showed up at the Briarwood show, had attended every single house party that the Spiral had played at as well as three house parties the Spiral didn't play at to pass out fliers there for the Briarwood show, had spent many hours online researching a band manager's actual job in relationship to everyone else that made bands successful, had still been working her job at Governor's Park four days a week, had gone on four dates with three different guys, and had bought her new summer wardrobe for the upcoming season.

She was exhausted, but sated.

The online community was alive and buzzing for the show, the fan count had tripled with the house parties that they played, the emails kept coming in for people that wanted Mystik Spiral to play their party, and the money jar for "band money" was getting full. It had been agreed upon that 15% of everyone's 20% cut would go towards the band for supplies, for promotional materials, and of course the demo that they wanted to record. Quinn had raised the rate to a flat $150 for a house party, meaning that everyone in the band, herself included, got $30 for showing up.

Out of that $30, $4.50 went into the band's jar for band use. The five house shows put $112.50 into the jar. Quinn used $10 of it for paper for the fliers, so they had $102.50 towards their demo. So, they were almost a third of the way towards their goal. If everyone gave 15% of their Briarwood cut, then they should get the demo recorded within the next two weeks.

She knew then it would be her responsibility to not only send copies of it to the local radio stations, but to also send out copies of it to the labels that might pick up an alt-rock band. She would need to come up with a cover letter and briefly wondered if Daria would be up for the challenge. She and her sister were a little strained right now, Daria's feathers ruffled at Quinn's interference in her love life, and Quinn's utter refusal to apologize for it as she felt that she hadn't done anything wrong.

"So, I put an ad in the 'Local Lawndalian' for the show," Quinn mentioned to Trent as she held up a violet tube top and compared it to the olive green skirt she was wearing. She shuddered at the combo and shook her head, discarding the offending top onto the floor, the twelfth such article of clothing to form the huge pile that now cluttered her floor.

He looked up at her in surprise. The 'Local Lawndalian' was a weekly free magazine that talked about local events and issues including local musicians playing shows. He'd never thought of advertising in it for any of the shows that the band had ever played. He supposed that he should have. Marketing was marketing. Travelers read that weekly free rag, if they were in town and they were looking for entertainment, then that kind of advertising could get them to the show. They could go back to their town and tell their friends about the band that they heard.

That's how bands popularity spread, people sharing with their friends. It's why this online social networking thing had been so great for them.

He really wasn't cut out to be a band manager. It was quite fortunate that Quinn fell into their lives like she had, otherwise they'd still be playing the Zon and McGrundy's occasionally while pretending to be criminals and anarchists.

Hell, until a month ago when he had a conversation with Daria about anarchy, he hadn't even really realized what it was or what it meant. He'd always thought that it would be great to over throw the government and let people do whatever they wanted. Daria had explained though that the basis of true anarchy was the belief that people were inherently good and that when left to their own devices they would do good things. It was imposed rules and restrictions that made people rebel and do bad things.

Daria didn't believe in anarchy because she couldn't get behind the premise that people were inherently good.

Upon further thought and reflection on his family life, he realized that anarchy was a horrible idea. He'd lived in anarchy his entire life. He'd lived in a world without rules, without restrictions, without any sort of overseeing where everyone did what made them happy.

Summer hated all of them and was doing everything in her power to pretend to be normal. She got married, she had kids, and she didn't visit if she could avoid it. Penny hated them even more and had left the country to get away from them. She said it was to liberate the people of the third world nations, but her contempt for the people of the third world nations was almost as great as her contempt for her family. Wind was a mess that overcompensated on the love that he lost out on with family by committing himself to loving everyone no matter what the cost.

Jane had never had a family, per se. She had Trent and Trent wasn't much of a family. He loved her and he would do anything for her, but he wasn't responsible enough to raise a kid. He had no idea how to put boundaries on her, and any time he had tried one of his parents would flit through their lives and undo his restrictions by telling her to do what made her happy.

Anarchy had destroyed his family, had ensured he never had one.

People might have been inherently good, he didn't know, but he did know that people were inherently selfish and would do what made them happy. There was no good of the team, there was only good of the self.

When he realized what anarchy truly meant, he scrubbed the symbols off of the tank and got rid of the stickers that he had put on his guitar case. He wouldn't ever promote that the world adopt the same type of laid-back attitude towards government that his parents had towards childrearing.

The Morgendorffer girls were certainly changing his life.

He watched as Quinn appeared to deeply contemplate a medium lilac top what had ¾" sleeves and a scoop neck. She quickly pulled it on over the white camisole that she was wearing and spun in front of the mirror a couple of times trying to determine if she liked it from all angles.

"What do you think?" she asked him.

He nodded, "it looks good on you."

"Well, duh," Quinn retorted with a smile. "A paper bag would look good on me. Does it look great on me?"

Trent's own smile crossed his lips, "Yeah, you'll turn some heads."

"Excellent," Quinn said. "Now, what are you wearing for the show?"

He shrugged and gestured towards the black pants, boots, and white wife-beater he was sporting. "This?"

She frowned, "I think we need to spice it up some. The basic outfit is good, it's clean and it's simple, but you're the front man of an increasingly popular band. You need to shine."

"You want to add glitter?" he asked skeptically.

Quinn rolled her eyes, "you sound like my sister."

"There are worse things you could say about me," he agreed easily.

"I don't know what I'm thinking yet; I'm just thinking something more theatrical."

"Like a top hat?"

Quinn glowered at him, "you're being argumentative."

"I just don't think I should have to dress up to play in a band," Trent drawled as he looked at his lyric book. He'd been writing a song about his childhood. Thinking about his siblings had made him nostalgic for those years before he realized how messed up his home life was.

This conversation was just another reminder of that childhood. Trent had always known that he wanted to be a musician. While his mother was a pottery slinger and his father an award winning photographer, Trent had always loved music. All kinds of music. If it had a good beat, he was intrigued by it. When he was in elementary school, he had played dress up as a rock musician; mimicking the outfits of musicians he loved, mimicking their stage moves off of music videos. Metal or glam, it didn't matter. If he enjoyed it, he learned how to rock out to it.

Then grunge hit the scene.

Flannel shirts, jeans, t-shirts, long hair, and boots. It became less about flashy showmanship and more about the music. Cobain had been a god.

With grunge and alt-rock, there were less explosions than with metal, less eyeliner than glam. Less death and destruction, less glitter and capes.

Grunge became about a way of life, a way of life that spoke to him. Metal took a back seat, glam disappeared. Introspective lyrics came to the forefront. Songs that were about the feelings of a generation, about being lost, about being bored, about being human.

He wasn't ready or willing to bring back flashy glam. He wasn't interested in the least in playing metal, screaming into the microphone about destruction and chaos. He wanted to play music that spoke to a generation.

"Trent, you're supposed to trust me," Quinn reminded him.

"I do," he stated easily, leaning back on the pillows and looking at the girl as she stood in front of him with her hands scrunched on her hips and her eyes flashing with annoyance. "I've already let you dress me up how you wanted to. I have trusted you with my life, my home, my band, and my relationship with your sister. I'm happy with the changes that you've made in me. I don't think we need to add a crown, or spandex, or glitter, or jewels to make me a rock star. If our music can't stand on it's own, then we shouldn't be playing it."

Quinn's frown deepened. She wanted to make Mystik Spiral the best band out there, and she couldn't if Trent wasn't willing to compromise on his wardrobe.

"Look, if the other guys want to play dress up, that's fine with me. I think Jesse could rock a top hat, I've seen Nick in eyeliner, Max would do anything you asked of him including glitter and spandex. I'm willing to put on a show for our fans, I'm not willing to pretend that I'm something I'm not."

The girl considered that. It would be playing dress up. It would be forcing Trent to go out on the stage each night and pretend that he was a completely different person. She thought about the ease that he and each of the band members had on stage when they were at the audition. That wouldn't be there if they were putting on a scripted show. That ease only came with being true to yourself.

She sighed. "Fine, keep your wardrobe."

Trent smiled and went back to his lyric writing while Quinn changed out of her decided wardrobe. They changed the direction of the conversation onto which songs the band would perform, which ones he was worried about, which ones he thought were ready for the demo, which ones he knew would never make the cut, which ones he wished would have.

His mind was heavily clouded by the wafting memories

Later that evening as he walked through the door to his own home, he tried to imagine what it would have been like to have been brought up as a Morgendorffer. To have a mom and dad downstairs and know that they worried about you. To have to keep a door open when a member of the opposite sex was in the room because people who loved you wanted to make sure you weren't doing something stupidly hormonal. To have a curfew and restrictions, to have love and encouragement, discipline and structure.

He leaned against the doorframe that looked into his house, hitching his hands into his back pockets and raking his eyes over the rooms exposed to him. He remembered his brother and sisters fighting on the stairs, he remembered hearing their laughter as they ran up the stairs with their friends into their rooms, he remembered all of the times one of his siblings would walk down those stairs with a case full of clothes and announce that they were leaving this hellhole to discover the world.

When they were around now, it was different than when they had all lived under the same roof, when they had relied upon each other to get through life while their parents explored the world, occasionally sending money or stopping through on their next adventure. Now they were jaded. Now they had experienced the world that their parents loved more than them and they were embittered.

When they visited now he wanted them to leave. They were distorted caricatures of the family members he had once known, angry, bitter, loveless creatures that attacked the holes in each other because it was easier than looking at the holes in themselves.

But he lived in this house. He was the last phantom to haunt these stairs, the last keeper of this crypt for a family that had scattered to the far reaches of the globe to discover what was so exciting about the world that it overtook loving them.

It had been funny, when he was younger, to laugh at the way his family wandered. To laugh at being the black sheep branch of a family of wanderers, to feel so superior at the Lane Family reunions because he knew in his heart of hearts that he and his siblings and his parents would never be like the other Lane's. They were artists, free spirits that looked upon conventional society and laughed. There was always love. You knew your family loved each other because they always came back.

He'd never be like Uncle Max – a withered up, bitter old drunkard that had no real connections to the world, a slacker, a loser, _a bum._

His family didn't hate each other, they would never really scatter, they would only explore and experience, they would create and envision, but they'd always come back.

Then they didn't. Not really. Even Janey's visits were getting shorter and less frequent. She was only coming for a week this summer. She was coming for a week this summer because Daria had to and she felt guilty not doing it. He'd never thought that he'd lose Janey to wandering. Everyone else, undoubtedly, but not Janey.

How many times his parents had slipped like ghosts through the rooms of this house, often without ever alerting him that they were there? Passing shadows of memories. Had they ever been real? He knew they must have been, his existence was evidence that they had at one point been here.

They were gone now though. It hurt. It hurt that they were gone, that they left, that they may never come back. That they never felt the need to try to form the bonds with their children that the Morgendorffer's had. Daria was coming home because Helen wanted her to, because Helen wanted to see her daughter and was willing to bribe her and emotionally blackmail her to accomplish this task.

Daria was loved, though she hated to admit it.

He was a Lane though. Lane's were loners, Lane's were not loved.

He was the last Lane left in this home.

The stationary Lane.

The Lane that time forgot.

The Lane less traveled.

Rubbing his eyes with tired hands, he entered the house, shut the door and traveled up the stairs, bypassing the memories of siblings gone by as they wrestled upon the staircase and marched down defiantly with luggage in hand to conquer the world.

With a heavy sigh, he fell face first onto the bed, allowing his body to slip into a deep unconsciousness and his mind to finally be released from the sad reality it wanted him to face.


	21. An Ideal Solution

Daria 21

As Jane walked into the apartment after a long day at school, she became aware that Mike was sitting on their couch, leaning over a textbook and looking deep in thought.

Again.

A frown crossed her lips as she realized that Mike and Daria had been spending time together every day for the last 2 weeks. Trent had seemed devastated by the revelation, which made Jane feel almost bad about yelling at her brother, but she still felt that he was being an idiot. All Daria needed was for Trent to be honest with her, and Trent was so hung up on what he thought Daria needed and wanted in a guy that he wouldn't hear Daria when she said she just wanted honesty.

He was determined to prove himself to Daria though, to prove that he was worth betting on. Jane wished that he could see that he was fine the way that he was, but she recognized that he was on some sort of quest. Daria was the goal, but the journey was what Trent was really doing this for.

She was worried about her brother. The last time she'd spoken with him he had seemed distracted and melancholy. At first, she thought that it was because Daria was dating someone else, but the more she spoke with him, the more she realized that it had more to do with his life in general.

He'd brought up Summer.

He never brought up the family, other than to mention what he'd heard about other members when they called, whenever he remembered to write that down on something other than his hand. He just wanted to talk about her though.

Summer was the one sibling that Jane knew the least. The age difference between the eldest and youngest Lane sibling was enough that Summer was in junior high school when Jane was born. Summer had babysat Jane in her early years, but was out of the house before Jane developed a lot of real, lasting memories. Sure, they'd seen each other whenever Summer was back in the house, but there wasn't the closeness there that Jane had with Trent, or even Wind.

He'd been talking about how Summer hadn't had a shot in this world. Jane didn't know what he meant by that. They had always agreed that they liked the way that their family was different than their friends.

Trent's opinion on that seemed to be changing though. His dissatisfaction with their parents and their wayward siblings was becoming increasingly evident. She figured he must be getting older and was starting to regret the lack of familial ties that he had. Jane couldn't imagine how lonely that house in Lawndale must be now that he was the only one there.

Jane tried to imagine her life alone in that house. It depressed her to think about.

Sure, he had his friends come over, but it wasn't the same as knowing it was your family house and that your family had left because they would rather be anywhere else with anyone else.

He had seemed happy up until the point where he thought that he was losing Daria. It seemed like he was on the right path and that all of the pieces of his life were falling into place. His band was going farther than they ever had before, he had taken to sleeping at almost normal hours, he had taken up cleaning his clothes and doing regular hygiene routines (at his manager's insistence), and he thought it was all leading towards the girl he had a crush on for years. Losing her, or thinking that he had, sent her brother into a tailspin.

To date, Daria had neither confirmed or denied that her relationship with Mike was as fictional as Upchuck's sex life, but Jane knew her friend well enough to know that she was not seriously seeing someone this close to reviving her feelings for Trent. Daria wasn't the type of girl that ran from one crush to another; relationships meant something to her. Jane also knew that Daria was uncomfortable with caring about people and having them care about her. Jane knew that Daria didn't want to ruin a good friendship by trying to make it a romantic relationship.

The thing was that Daria had one of the best damn poker faces Jane had ever seen. When it came to keeping your face straight when the world was looking for a reaction, Daria was the queen. What that meant was that Jane couldn't get evidence one way or another about the nature of this relationship between Mike and Daria by talking to her friend when Daria wasn't willing to discuss the details. If Daria didn't want you to know something then you wouldn't know it.

Jane had always been able to tease her about boys before, but the stoic Ms. Morgendorffer had learned over the years to hide even those reactions.

Jane had noticed that this Mike guy didn't have Daria's naturally composed expression. Jane had seen tells, he wouldn't be able to bluff her if she got a shot at an interrogation, and this was looking like such an opportunity.

"Where's Daria?" Jane asked the guy as she entered the living room and sat down on the other end of the sofa. She took in his appearance for a second. He was about 5'10", slightly muscular build, green eyes, curly brown hair, and an eyebrow stud. He wore ripped and faded blue jeans and a black muscle shirt with Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" logo on it. He wasn't as cute as Jason, she thought, but she could definitely see why Daria would like him.

He had an alt-punk feel to him in a simple and understated way. Jane respected the look.

Mike smiled at her, "she's making us some snacks for brain food."

"How'd you two meet?" Jane continued her interrogation as she started working on the laces of her boots to take them off.

"Advanced Composition course last year. We've been friends since," Mike's smile was more amused now than anything else. Jane could tell he knew this was an interview and he didn't seem to mind in the least. It was a natural confidence in himself that he exuded, she would almost say a Lane confidence.

"Why did you just now start dating?"

Mike laughed, "she was in that relationship with Jason for a long time. I've been in a couple since then myself. Timing's right now."

"What's your major?"

"Literature," Mike answered, "though I'm considering switching it over to philosophy."

"So, you're an English major like Daria?"

He shrugged, "kind of. Different focuses, but we're in the same umbrella. She is studying composition and I'm studying the works already written. We've been in a few classes together though."

"She seems to think that you two are kismet,' Jane frowned again, "what's Daria's favorite TV show?"

"She likes murder mysteries, but her preferences are for social satire, Sick Sad World being at the top of that list."

"What's her sisters name?"

"Quinn. Now, am I qualifying for that green card I applied for?" Mike asked Jane with a smirk. "Look, I get you're protective of your friend, and I think it's really cute that you want to grill me to make sure I'm not going to hurt her, but I'm not sure how any of this is your business."

"That's not why she's grilling you," Daria commented as she came back in the room and cast a sour glare at her best friend before setting a couple bowls of popcorn on the coffee table. "Jane thinks that I'm faking a relationship with you just to spite her brother."

Mike laughed as Jane returned Daria's glare, "now why would she ever think that?"

Daria cast the evil eye over to Mike, "quiet, you."

He waved her off as she returned her attention to Jane. The two friends stared each other down, each being more than a little annoyed with this recent development in their relationship. They didn't often stand on opposite sides of an issue, but when they did it was never pretty.

Jane had always been able to nail Daria down on feelings and motivations. When it came to interpersonal relationships, Daria was pretty much an open book, but her relationship with Trent was complicated. Neither party involved in the relationship was acting how the usually did when they were seeing someone. Now there was Mike. He was delightful, Jane would give him that, but there was something a little off about the whole thing. Jane definitely felt like the dating was being faked, but there was more to it than that.

There had to be more to it than that.

No guy would fake a relationship with a girl for no reason. Daria was either blackmailing him or bribing him – putting to use all of the ruthless bartering skills that she learned from her family. Either way, it would be difficult for Jane to crack Mike if Daria was hanging something over him.

He didn't seem unhappy, so Jane assumed it was a bribe over blackmail. She supposed that was good. Daria was more social now than she had been when they met, but Jane feared that she was still socially awkward enough to ruin a friendship blackmailing someone into doing what she wanted them to do. It was good that she chose bribe over blackmail.

With a frustrated huffing noise, Jane picked up her discarded boots and left the room. Her opportunity to question the interloper was gone for now and she was too annoyed with her best friend to try to pretend to be sociable with them right now.

Mike laughed as Daria sat back down on the couch beside him. "She's not stupid, you know? She knows this isn't real."

Daria lifted one shoulder up in a half-hearted shrug. "It doesn't matter what she thinks she knows, what matters is that she can't prove it. I'm not going to out us and I know that you won't either. You have too much riding on our relationship."

He mimicked her shrug. He was terribly amused by this whole situation he found himself playing a supporting role in. Mike had known Daria for a while now and they had hung out together a few times before, but they hadn't been very close. That was why her proposal to him a few weeks ago in the pizza parlor had come as quite a surprise.

Mike hadn't been suspicious when he received her text asking to see him, there was no reason why he should have been. Every once in a while one of them would decide that they should see each other to find out what was new. Usually they had a class or two together, but this semester they didn't. He was glad to hear from her.

Most people found Daria abrasive, but she was one of the only people he'd ever met that got him. Once they had established the friendship, she passed no judgments upon him. It was refreshing to have someone in his life that he could talk to that didn't know all of the key players and that could pass some objective wisdom into his world.

So, they'd met up, and for the first half hour had just caught up on each others lives. They'd talked about classes and family and each other's latest exploits. She'd asked about his love life, he'd let her know that his previous current was now an ex – differences of philosophical beliefs, completely irreconcilable. Scarily irreconcilable. Daria told him about the split with Jason. And then about the friendship with Trent. And then the lingering problem of Jason. And then back to Trent, who had decided to complicate their relationship by implying that he had developed more than friend feelings for her.

The girl wanted out of both "romantic" entanglements – one because it had run its course and she was bored with it, and the other because she was too scared of losing what made it special in the first place.

"Sounds like you've got yourself a problem, doll," Mike had said as he took a sip of his soda and stared at the pensive girl across from him. There was a question in that body position of hers, slightly hunched over, a hint of frown upon her lips, and a nervous clenching of her hand as she toyed with her napkin.

There was a long pause before Daria lifted her eyes to his. "That's where you come in. How'd you like to be my boyfriend?"

Mike laughed outright at the question, more than slightly amused by the proposition. "No offense, Daria, but you know you're not even close to my type, right?"

"My lack of a penis definitely makes me not your ideal relationship candidate," Daria agreed frankly. "However, what makes this a problem for you actually makes you the perfectly logical candidate for me. I need to make it seem like I've moved on, and since I'm not looking to get into a relationship right now, you're my best option. Things won't get awkward or complicated because you have never once thought about me in bed. A gay guy and a straight girl is the only way to keep my life from turning into a Meg Ryan movie."

The boy stared at her in disbelief for a second, not believing that she was serious. "You have a genius IQ, right?"

"I'm a member of MENSA," Daria answered.

He took that to be an affirmative answer. "This is really the best you could come up with? Asking your gay friend to pretend to be straight so that he could date you to keep a guy that you have a crush on from trying to pursue you any further?"

"It would mostly be in name," Daria told him, ignoring the insult to her intelligence and the rest of his diatribe. "I'm your ideal girlfriend. I don't want to go out with you, I don't care what guys you want to or do screw, and I'm not going to get obsessive or controlling. I simply need someone to show up every now and then and look like they're into me so that Jane doesn't tell Trent or Quinn that you're fictional."

"And why do I need this ideal girlfriend when I'm looking for the ideal boyfriend?" Mike asked her seriously.

A brief smile flitted across her lips before disappearing. He had to wonder if this was how a deer running through a forest with a mountain lion chasing if felt. There was calmness in that fleeting smile, a moment of eerie silence and perfect stillness in a clearing before the large cat came crashing down upon its prey ripping its hide apart with its fangs and claws.

"You don't," Daria let him know. "What you do need, and I have heard you lament your inability to obtain several times, is 2 tickets to Burning Man in September. Plane tickets to Nevada included. Round trip."

Mike froze and tried to assess from her facial reactions if she was serious or not. That was a very large bribe. This was a service he would have taken on free of charge, but this was one hell of a pay off if she was serious – and it looked like she was. Burning Man had been Mike's dream for about six years now, but Massachusetts was a long way from Nevada and he could never scrounge enough money for a plane ticket and a Burning Man ticket.

It was Mecca for the artistic. A pilgrimage that he figured he would save his entire life to make. Now, this girl was offering him and a friend a free pass there. All he had to do was pretend to date her.

"Are you serious?" He questioned.

She nodded, "yep. Plane tickets are already reserved, Burning Man tickets are already bought. You pretend to be my boyfriend until a few weeks after I'm back from Lawndale and I'll provide you with the trip of a lifetime; if not, then I'll scalp the tickets on eBay for three times the price I paid for them come August."

So, now here he was in the joint Lane/Morgendorffer apartment pretending to date a girl – which was a laugh in itself – so that she didn't have to deal with the potential loss of a good friend if they allowed themselves to become more. He knew that it was wrong, he knew that he should be encouraging the girl to face her reservations and to go after the guy that she had wanted for years, but the thought of his tickets being sold to someone else held his tongue tight in his mouth.

He hoped that Jane would figure out the situation soon enough so she could talk some sense into their mutual friend. Mike would hate to see Daria lose out on someone that really cared about her because she was too scared to gamble and lose it all.

And in her heart, Daria knew that she was being as cowardly as she declared Trent to be. She knew that she was causing unnecessary grief to a guy that cared a lot about her by playing this juvenile game, but she couldn't help herself. Being perceived as childish was so much better than the potential heartache of falling for Trent all over again and then losing the friendship that they had built.

There was no way that a relationship could work out, so there was no point in trying for one.

* * *

><p>Jane sat on her bed for a moment examining the clothes that she had in her closet and contemplating which ones to throw into her overnight bag. This thing with Trent and Daria had her really upset. Upset not because they didn't know how to communicate so they made stupid decisions that really inconvenienced everyone else in their lives, but upset because somewhere during this growth process, her brother woke up and realized that he hated his life. He had realized that he was dissatisfied with his world.<p>

She loved Trent so much and only wanted him to be happy. He was the only parent that she had ever known, really. Sure, Vincent and Amanda wandered through her life and she threw the respectful "mom" and "dad" their ways, but they weren't her parents. They were figureheads that drifted in and out of her memories loosely and without connection, there one moment and like a mirage in the desert they were gone the next.

Trent was her parent. He was the one that raised her, protected her, encouraged her, helped her when she was hurt, comforted her when she was sad, and knew how to make her feel better no matter what the situation was.

He was her family and he was hurting.

Hurting because of Daria and hurting because of his sudden return to consciousness that left him jarringly aware of his own shortcomings. Trent didn't have anyone that protected him, comforted him, helped him and made him feel better. He was alone.

She left him alone.

She had knowingly packed up her belongings and left like so many others before her. Logically she knew that she didn't do anything wrong. She did what eighteen year olds did, she left the family nest to go to college. However, most kids left behind parents in their family home, not their older brother. She'd abandoned him.

It was fine when Trent was oblivious to the world around him, when he was content to sit in the basement all day practicing the same five songs and talking about how The Spiral was going to conquer the world. It was less okay now that he was awake, now that he was bringing up family members that Jane hardly spared a second thought to, but that Trent remembered well.

Jane knew that Quinn was there. Quinn was taking care of things, she was taking care of Trent, but it wasn't the same as having your family there. The show was tonight. Trent had been talking about it for weeks, and it hadn't even occurred to Jane that he might want his family to be there. She had just assumed that he would be happy with the same turnout that he received at The Zon, but now that she was thinking about it, she realized that the only right thing to do would be to get her ass down to Lawndale and make it to his show.

The doors didn't open for another four and a half hours. It was about a three-hour drive to Lawndale, give or take depending on traffic.

She could make it down there with ample time to spare, get some food, and support her big brother at this new juncture in his life. He would do it for her. She knew that he would go to any important art exhibit that she had.

He might show up a few hours late, but he would show up.

She wanted to be the kind of person that he raised her to be.

The sounds of Mike leaving wafted down the hallway and a sad frown crossed Jane's lips. She wasn't the only person that Trent would want the support of tonight. This was all for Daria. It only happened because Trent wanted to win the love of the girl that he had a crush on for years.

"Hey, Morgendorffer!" Jane called out, waiting for her friend to enter the room before she continued. "Show in Briarwood is tonight."

Daria nodded that she remembered this fact, puzzled that her friend felt the need to point this out. It was pretty much all Trent had talked about lately. He was nervous about it, worried that they had overestimated their popularity and that no one would show up. He'd played empty clubs before, but it was different when someone really put their neck out on the line for you to let you play when you weren't really known on a Friday night.

Daria's face paled at the next words:

"Pack an overnight bag, we're going to go support Trent."

* * *

><p>A.N. Wow...Sorry about disappearing for a month! I started this chapter and then lost my muse for a little while there. I didn't want to rush this, but hadn't even realized it had been a month =(<p>

I want to thank all of you for the overwhelming response off the last chapter. I took it to a sadder place than I meant to, but I'm glad that you all enjoyed it!


	22. The Low Shelf

She knew that the car ride would be uncomfortable, but Daria hadn't realized that it would be absolutely miserable.

The first half hour had been spent in silence. A comfortable silence was common for the two friends who knew each other so well that words weren't often necessary, however, this silence was tense and awkward. Daria knew that Jane was pissed at her and truthfully Daria was still livid with Jane over the deceptive way that she tried to manipulate her.

She'd thought that high school yenta act passed a long time ago. Though, Daria also thought that her crush on the dark haired musician passed a long time ago, and clearly she had been incorrect about that.

The prolonged silence, however, crushed her anger. Self-doubt began to plague the petite brunette. Had she overreacted to Jane's involvement in her and Trent's strange relationship? All Jane had done was encourage the bookish girl to communicate with the slacker songwriter. All she had done was encourage the girl to care more for her physical appearance and to take some pride in herself.

The bitch.

Clearly Jane was evil in disguise. How dare her friend want her to be happy with someone who she obviously enjoyed communicating with? How unreasonable.

Then there was the issue of Trent. Daria wanted to support him, she did, she knew that Jane was right that they should go to his show and give him the support that he needed. This wasn't a Zon or McGrundy's event for the band, it wasn't a house party for teenagers who didn't care about the music playing. This was their first real attempt at making it as a band.

Trent would want her there.

Just acknowledging that made Daria's stomach clench in fear.

How was she going to face him? She thought that there would be more time, thought that she'd be able to get better control over her feelings before she had to stand in front of him, knowing that he wanted to date her as she wanted to date him.

It seemed absurd.

Trent had always been a distant dream, always safe and out of the realm of possibility. How could he now make clear that he wanted to make the dream a reality?

She didn't think she could handle this. She'd gotten so much better over the years of not stuttering, not blushing, not going silent, not getting a rash…when talking with guys she liked, but this was TRENT. Her first real crush, the first guy she ever had a sex dream about. Trent who used to date the tall, beautiful, talented, artistically-inclined Monique. How could she ever hope to compare to Trent's regular girlfriend between girlfriends?

Running away was easier.

She recognized that's what she was doing. She was using Mike as a buffer so she wouldn't have to face the agonizing disappointment of not being able to live up to the expectations Trent would have of her. Yes, she really didn't want to ruin their friendship. Dating her friends had never ended well; the friendship was never the same. Sure, she and Tom still talked, she was going to his and Muffy's, or whatever the hell his fiance's name was, wedding. The closeness that they had was gone, though.

The real fear was that Trent would realize his mistake.

He would realize that she was not pretty enough, not smart enough, not talented enough, not fun enough, and he would reject her. She couldn't handle that.

It was easier to stop things before they started. Easier to try to keep things on a friend basis before they ruined it.

Jane had every right to be mad at her, Daria knew that. Her friend had been rooting for a relationship between the two for years, and now when it finally looked like it could happen, Daria slammed on the brakes and then backpedaled as fast as humanly possible. She was surprised the Lane siblings didn't get whiplash from her change in directions.

Contrary to Daria's self-doubting inner diatribe, however, Jane wasn't focusing her anger on her best friend or her assumed bogus relationship with a punk rock lit major named Mike. Her concern lay with her older brother swimming in a sea of depression.

All that mattered was getting herself and the reluctant Ms. Morgendorffer to the concert and showing their support for a man that they both cared deeply for – whether Daria wanted to admit it or not.

Ok.

She was still a little fried with her friend.

She was also a little worried that Quinn would be unhappy that Daria was coming to town early. Jane knew that Quinn's entire being had obsessed over the last couple of months how perfect it would be when the newly shaped Trent emerged before her nerdy older sister as a catch worth grabbing hold of.

Quinn was a romantic at heart. She believed in fairy tales and happily ever after.

Having her setup of Daria's 21st birthday ruined might send the redhead into a tizzy.

It couldn't be helped though and Jane quickly pushed the thought from her mind as she navigated the highway back to the hellhole she grew up in. The hellhole she'd left her brother in.

This was no time to feel guilty. She could be there to support Trent now. She would show him that when it mattered, at least one member of his family would be there for him. And the girl that he was trying to change his life for would be there. Whether she like it or not.

Jane shot a sidelong look at her friend as she sat self-consciously in the passenger seat. The closer they got to Lawndale, the more leery the expression on Daria's face became. Knowing her friend, a million different scenarios were running through the young genius's head about how this meeting between her and Trent would go down. Not one of them would be good.

That's why she had put the desperate barrier of a new boy in her life between her and Trent. Knowing her neurotic friend for as long as she did, Jane was well aware of the desperate acts Daria would go through to avoid being hurt. Even if it meant that she hurt herself in the process.

Which ruining her relationship with Trent would do, it would ironically hurt them both, which was what Daria thought she was preventing.

"So, I'm working on a new theory," Jane casually broke the ice and the half hour silence that enveloped them. It would be no fun to go to a rock show with Daria if things were still tense between them. It was hard enough going to shows with Daria when things were perfect between them. The girl just did not do well in social situations.

"That's always good," Daria said, her sarcasm always sharp no matter how nauseous she was feeling due to nerves.

"Mike's gay," Jane concluded. Sure, it was a sore subject between the two, but she figured they could get some good banter out of this newest thought she had about their relationship.

Daria shot a withering glance at her friend. "What makes you think that the guy I'm dating is gay?"

Jane considered all of the signals. "Skinny jeans, decent fashion sense, great sense of humor, never once has looked either of our racks. He could be a metro, but I'm telling you that boy is a peach if I ever saw one."

"If he's so gay, why is he dating me?" Daria tested her friend's theory, knowing that Jane knew her too well and would likely figure it out, even if Daria stonewalled her completely, which she had every intention of doing. This wasn't her preferred topic of conversation, but it came so genially from her friend, that she would concede in talking with her about it, even if she wasn't going to offer up anything that threatened the ruse.

Jane made a noise of contemplation. "I was thinking blackmail at first, I know it's a family trait that you've honed your skills on. However, when I was talking to him earlier, he didn't seem like he was being forced. He seemed really amused and good-spirited about your relationship."

"Maybe he's just really dating me," Daria said tersely, crossing her arms and slumping in the car seat. This was going to be a miserable few hours if Jane insisted on getting to the bottom of why Daria started dating someone as soon as she realized that she and Trent might really have something if one of them didn't stop it. Still, it was better than the silence where she was alone with her thoughts.

Jane shook her head, "nah, I considered that and it doesn't fit. It's that whole poles vs. holes thing. So that led us to bribery, a personal favorite of your mother's and one you've never hesitated to resort to when the situation called for it."

"Obviously he couldn't just be interested in me," Daria said.

Jane shook her head as she set the cruise control in the car and drove down the sparsely traveled highway. "I'm telling you, the boy is gayer than Liberace."

"What could I possibly have bribed him with then? I'm not exactly rich and my feminine charms wouldn't work on him according to your theory. He's doing his own damn homework if you haven't noticed, so what do you think that he's being bribed with?"

The broke part was true, even truer now that she'd shelled out so much money on the tickets that bought the boy off. She really wished that she hadn't agreed to go on this trip to Lawndale. No matter how much she wanted to see Trent…Mystik Spiral play this evening, she wasn't sure if she had enough control over herself yet to be around Trent.

It would be easier if he didn't like her, too; or if she was as unaware of his mutual affection as she had been throughout most of their relationship. However, he did and she wasn't, which made it harder for her to ignore the voice in her head that told her they could be together if she just let her barriers down.

They could be together and they could fall apart together.

"I'm not sure of the bribe. What I am sure of is that while you could handle some flirting from him, as soon as you realized my brother's affection for you ran deeper than a little flirtation, it freaked you out. Could he have handled starting a relationship with you differently, yeah, definitely; letting your sister take the reins was probably not his smartest idea, but she promised him a new chance at life, she promised him that she could make him worthy of you. Everything he's doing right now with the Spiral is all to prove himself worthy to you. And you're conjuring a relationship with an obviously gay man to avoid the fact that you don't think you're worthy of him. You two are so pathetically perfect for each other."

Daria flushed crimson from the sting of her friend's words.

That's how she knew they were best friends. Only a friend would lay everything on the line in such an acerbic way.

"Trent and I have a good friendship," Daria said once she found her voice. "I've ruined every relationship I've ever been in. You know when I'm going to ruin them. You knew I was going to break up with Jason as soon as he asked me to move in with him. Lane, I don't want to ruin Trent's and my friendship like I ruined my and Jason's. I would rather he and I remain friends for life than have a relationship with him for a few months that I destroy with my fear of commitment."

Silence descended upon the car again.

Crushing silence, painful silence.

Jane had her own fears about what would happen should things go south. She had her own fears about her only real family member and her only true friend destroying each other in a futile attempt to keep what made them so good for each other in the first place. She knew that it was ridiculous. She'd heard the commitment in Trent's voice when he admitted his feelings for Daria to her. Daria herself had wanted this relationship for almost six years. They wouldn't let it go so easily once they had it.

"Trent will always be your friend, Daria," Jane said softly. "He and Monique have torn each other apart so many times trying to do what you're afraid you guys will do. They might be angry with each other for a few months, but they've always managed to hold onto their friendship. You did the same thing with Tom. When it got bad, when you realized it wouldn't work out, you let him down, but still managed to hold onto the friendship. And Steven, you still hang out with him even though you guys have been over for almost two years and he has another girlfriend. If there were ever two people who could end a relationship and still hold onto what made it beautiful, it's you and my brother."

Daria shook her head, "it got ruined with Jason. I really cared for him and now we can't even be around each other without it becoming awkward. I don't want that with Trent, I care about him too much."

"You think faking a relationship with a gay man is going to make things less awkward between you two?" Jane asked skeptically. While Daria had neither confirmed nor denied Mike's sexuality, the fact that she had effectively ignored Jane's continued declaration of it showed her that she'd hit upon a very likely explanation. Of course Daria would use a gay man as a buffer, that way nothing could ever happen between them and no relationship could get ruined.

"Besides," Jane continued, "it only got awkward between you and Jason because he refused to believe that you were seriously dumping him. I like that boy, I do, but he really should have kept his mouth shut when he realized you were still into Trent."

Daria shrugged. "It was awkward before that. He made no secret that he wanted me back."

"That's on him, not you," Jane said not understanding her friend's continued insistence that she ruined every relationship she got into. Sure, Daria had ended every relationship she'd ever been in, but Jason was the only one that she hadn't been able to maintain the friendship with. Daria didn't make friends easily, but when someone was her friend, she was committed to them. Jane knew that Daria fought for the relationships that mattered to her, and Trent was a relationship that mattered.

Silence descended upon them again, less crushing now that a conversation had happened between the two girls. This silence came from Daria's mind slowly processing everything Jane said, working the other girl's words into her own frame of mind, accepting and rejecting the parts of Jane's words that rang true with her.

Jane only hoped that something she said stuck and that Daria would realize that she couldn't run from what had built between her and Trent any longer.

* * *

><p>He stood in the bathroom staring at his reflection in the mirror. The noise of the crowd in the bar pulsed in the air around him, reminding him of why he had escaped to the bathroom in the first place. The stomach acids churned in his stomach as anxiety about this show danced in his mind.<p>

He'd been worried that no one would show up, which he guessed was a silly fear considering how much hype they'd gotten on it and how everyone at the house parties they'd played had seemed excited by it. Still, things didn't often work out like he wanted them to work out.

It would have been his luck if no one showed up.

He hadn't felt this nervous about a show since the time he and Monique played their first show together eleven years before. He'd thrown up back stage from the pressure. She'd sat beside him rubbing his back while he lost his dinner in a bucket.

To this day, hot pockets made him queasy.

She'd texted him to say good luck earlier in the evening. It had been sweet of her. The Harpies were meandering their way back home. It'd be good to see them again, to have Monique back around. He looked forward to sitting down with her over a beer and rehashing the last few months of each of their lives. A lot changed in his world over the last couple of months, a lot had shaped him into someone she'd be proud to know.

It was over between them, completely over relationship wise, but she was still special to him. She'd always be one of his best friends. She had always encouraged him, even if sometimes she told him that he was a shiftless slacker.

He couldn't argue that she'd had a point.

So, here he was.

Playing for a bigger crowd than he ever had before.

And no one was here for him.

Janey had sent a text like Monique had. Daria had called a few hours before and spoke with him about how proud she was of him. It'd been nice to hear from her. For the few minutes that they spoke, he hadn't felt nervous about this show. She made him focused and more assured. It'd felt right talking to her.

He'd been spiraling out of emotional control lately. He could feel that his mindset was jacked up.

Quinn had told him so as well.

He wasn't getting to see her as much either. She was so busy all of the time doing what needed to be done to get the band handled. He'd never really realized that being in a band was a business, that it was a job, that it required constant work and a driven effort to make it succeed. Trent had always been in it for the music, it's what he liked to do and what he was good at. There was a business aspect to it though, money changed hands, marketing needed to be done, demographics needed to be considered, image was key.

He felt like a can of soup.

It's what it amounted to.

He was a product.

The music was just the chicken noodle broth inside. It still needed a shiny label, it needed an ad campaign, it needed stores to carry it, it needed to be good enough for people to want to buy it again.

So, he was a can of soup.

Trent had never been aware that he was depressed before. It was hard to be aware of anything when you were always asleep. When he was asleep he felt good. So he slept all of the time. He supposed that should have been a clue to his mental state.

He'd tried calling Summer and talking with her.

The conversation had been short. She was stressed out over the kids or the bills or the husband or something and he didn't know how to phrase what he wanted to say. How do you apologize to someone for the fact that they had never stood a chance at being happy because he had been born and she'd had to give up on her dreams and goals and ambitions? After several bumbling attempts, Summer had told him to write it down when he remembered what he wanted to say, then hung up on him.

He couldn't blame her.

He wasn't even going to attempt trying to find Penny to apologize to her that she had no other option than to become a heinous bitch because of their parents.

Trent didn't figure that conversation would go any better than the one with Summer had, and it wasn't really his place to apologize to them, he hadn't decided to have a bunch of children that he didn't feel like raising. In fact, as far as he was aware, he had no children out there in the world.

Leaving the bathroom, he headed outside where the rest of the band sat in the Tank smoking a joint and getting themselves ready for the show. There was another band playing right now. The crowd seemed pretty indifferent to them. Trent supposed that could be taken well or poorly by the Spiral; a lot of these people were here to see Mystik Spiral and didn't care about the first band, or it was a really tough crowd that night.

Trent wasn't sure which would be worse, nobody showing up or a bunch of people showing up that didn't like their music.

They'd played both of those venues before.

Neither got any easier the more they did it.

Taking a hit off of the joint, he looked around for their fearless manager. She must've been back inside dealing with lighting or whatever else it was that managers did. He'd never really thought about any of that shit before. Could be why the shows never really went that well before Quinn joined them. He liked to just show up and play the music that he loved.

For not the first time, he wondered what he could do to pay the redhead back.

It had been a little less than two months since they had struck the agreement to let her take over his life and she had already done more with it than he had been able to in his twenty-six years being in charge. He'd never be able to thank her enough.

The back door opened and the opening band began unloading their equipment back into their van.

That was the Spiral's cue that they were almost on.

He climbed out of the back and into the driver's seat, then pulled the Tank up behind the other band and the boys piled out; Trent complimented them on the few songs he'd caught of their act as the two bands shuffled equipment around each other. They'd had a pretty decent sound. He knew some bands got into rivalries and didn't like to compliment other bands abilities, but he saw no reason to begrudge these guys success if they could find it. It would be like being upset with the Harpies for being on a tour right now. Bands should be a community, they should help each other out.

And you never knew when your drummer would get sick and you needed to find a substitute. Knowing other musicians was definitely a smart move. Getting a reputation as a band of elitist assholes was also something he didn't want the Spiral to do.

Showmanship was a big thing.

You had to put on a good show on stage and you had to put on a good show offstage. It's why the band took time in each rehearsal to practice being on stage. They couldn't have one of Max and Nick's arguments erupting in front of the crowd; and after several poor moments with Jesse's commentary, and Trent's own problems with losing focus on the task at hand, it had just been determined that they had to work on staying loose and professional in front of the crowd.

They also practiced the setup of their equipment. Being able to do it quickly and efficiently was important. Trent had seen more than a couple of bands get heckled because their setup was sloppy. Nothing ensured a bad show more than some drunk jackass in the crowd turning the audience against you when you just tuning your guitar. Quick and efficient set-up was important.

Trent did his best not to look at the audience while he was lugging the equipment in. He really hadn't felt nervous about a show in a long time. It was a weird feeling. It was probably because it had never seemed so important to do well.

The set-up went quickly and smoothly. Idle chatter back and forth between him and Jesse while they adjusted their guitars and made sure they were in-tune with each other. He could see Quinn moving through the crowd, speaking with fans that she recognized from the marketing she'd done for the show. She was poetry working the crowd.

And she was there for him.

She was the only one in the audience that was there for just him. She was the only friend he had outside of the band left in Lawndale. Maybe that was the problem, that he and the band were still in that dead end town.

Lawndale was the low shelf in a hillbilly convenience store.

Mystik Spiral had been comfortable on that low shelf with the few gap-toothed regulars that bought their particular brand. They were comfortable there. They never had to aspire to be better.

Then Quinn came along, and she changed their packaging, she changed their recipe, she changed their marketing, and suddenly that low shelf wasn't looking as appealing.

Lawndale never changed and Trent had, in a very short time.

Even if this thing with Mystik Spiral didn't take off like he hoped it would, he knew that he couldn't stay in Lawndale. He would never be happy in a town that never wanted him to change, that never wanted him to wake up and aspire for more.

Let one of his siblings come back and take care of the house if it was so important. He hated it anyway.

The crowd started cheering as he stepped into the mic and introduced the band. His nerves slipped away as he fell into the music. Nothing mattered outside of the music that he and his best friends made. All of the anger and unhappiness that he felt living in that house alone while his parents neglected his family and his siblings ran from it all found its way into his voice and his performance, energizing and fueling the audience in a way that the first band hadn't been able to pull off.

As the first song came to an end and the crowd roared its approval, Trent realized that there really wasn't anything he'd rather be doing. Being on the stage with the lights obscuring his vision, feeling the energy of those that were enjoying something that he loved so much, was the best feeling in the world. He could live on that stage, feeding off that enthusiasm from a roomful of strangers.

They started a fast song and at once a pit broke out in the center of the bar, guys and some hardcore chicks running in a circle to the music while other people in the center of the circle ran into each other. While he was excited to see a pit form at his show, Trent had never been a big fan of being in the pit when he went to shows. It made it hard to enjoy the music when he was trying not to get punched and elbowed by other music lovers that took a physical approach to their appreciation. Max loved the pit and was often the most aggressive member in it. Come to think of it, Jane loved it, too. He'd seen her take quite a few hits and come out laughing.

He and his little sister were just different in their musical appreciation. Jane loved the adrenaline she got from physically feeling other people's enjoyment of the sound while he wanted nothing more than to sit and listen to the sound.

Thinking about his little sister made her best friend once more in his mind. He knew that Daria was more like him when it came to going to shows – except she would have preferred staying home and reading a book rather than going out in public to listen to loud music with shitty words.

He smiled at this own self-deprecating thought while continuing to play with his band. He knew that Daria hated Mysik Spiral's sound when she first heard them play, and though she had slowly built a tolerance for it, he was aware that she still had a mocking attitude towards the band.

Trent really hoped that he could prove her wrong one day, he really hoped that she would see that he wasn't just a narcoleptic slacker that lived in his parent's house and played half-assed music with a burnout and a couple of hotheads. He didn't feel like that anymore. It had only been two months since he opened his eyes to the world, but he didn't feel the connection to that willfully ignorant child he had been. And he had been a child. He had lived in a frozen reality where the world moved around him, but he never engaged in it, where he had lashed out at other's that tried to infiltrate that comfortable lethargic bubble that kept him a perpetual teenager.

All for the love of a girl.

He came alive and stood on this stage now for the love of one mousy brunette that deserved more.

The band played the rest of the set to alarming enthusiasm from the crowd. It was everything that the band had ever said that they wanted, people enjoyed what they were doing, people wanted to hear more, had screamed for an encore. Mystik Spiral had never played an encore before.

Trent had never felt so alive.

After the breakdown of equipment, and after finding Quinn in the crowd, scooping her into a giant hug and thanking her for changing his life, he slipped outside into the stillness of the parking lot and stood facing the street.

He took out his phone and stared at it for a minute.

Just like that show at the Zon, there was only one person that he wanted to share this evening with. There was only one person that he wanted to decompress with. The rest of the band was still inside, drinking and partying after this successful night. A part of him longed to be inside with the other guys that made this night so great, wanted to revel in the congratulations and adulations of the crowd that enjoyed his art.

But instead he was outside staring at a cell phone and thinking about the one person that he wanted to talk to. Doubt stopped him from making that call. She was seeing someone else.

Even if Quinn and Jane assured him that it was a fake relationship, didn't that say something about his chances with her? If she was willing to fabricate an entire relationship to avoid facing his affection for her, shouldn't he respect that and stop the late night phone calls that he so looked forward to?

But he really wanted to talk to her, and she had never once given him the impression that she didn't want to talk to him, even if she may or may not have been seeing someone else.

She wanted to be friends.

Friends.

Yes, he could do just friends with her.

Making the decision, he pushed the call button that he had been hesitating to press.

It vaguely registered in his mind that he heard the sound of a cell phone ringing nearby at the same time he pushed the button. Ringing. Not playing a song. Not quacking like a duck. Not an annoying church bell. A ring.

"Hello?"

Her voice sounded close to him, he took comfort in that. She sounded awake, too, not like he had just roused her from her sleep. That made him happy. He'd really felt guilty about waking her up last time.

"Hey, Daria," he drawled, really hoping that she didn't mind this late night intrusion. It was around one in the morning afterall.

"Hey," came the soft response.

He froze.

While the voice had come through the cell phone, it had also sounded just as strongly from behind him. He didn't dare to hope it was true.

Recovering himself, he lowered the phone from his ear to turn around and face the only person he ever wanted to see on a night like this.

* * *

><p>AN: Wow, it's been a while since I worked on this story! I'm sorry for the very long wait between chapters here.

Fanfiction took a backseat for a while there while I wrote, edited, and self-published my first novel, "Breaking the Reflection." It's been a very hectic few months of my life trying to finalize everything with that project, but I finally feel happy with it and have released it on Amazon.

Thanks for all of your patience with me while I devoted some time to that work!

Love you all for your kind words about the last chapter and hope that this one was worth the wait!

-Danika Dierhart


	23. In Silence

Jane really felt that she should receive a medal for the willpower it took to not follow Daria outside and spy on the reunion between the two terribly awkward future lovers. The bumbling and fumbling that was sure to follow would be priceless. She could imagine some great artwork coming out of the situation, but she also knew that her presence could make them both shut down communication and refuse to admit that anything existed between them.

Trent would tuck his hands in his back pockets, slouching a bit as he stared at her with indifferent eyes suggesting that he had no idea why she was insisting that something interesting should happen. He'd go monosyllabic, or worse, pretend that he was sleeping. Daria would cross her arms across her chest and give her that unnerving glare that hurt worse than any flogger could. The glare was nothing compared to the defensive tongue lashing that would follow, though.

So, she contented herself to staying inside and catching up with the rest of the boys in the band, who were excited to have Trent's little sister have a drink with them in a bar. It was a novel experience for them. They'd snuck Jane alcohol for so long that she'd seen Nick double-take when she ordered herself an AMF and passed a legit ID to the bartender when they requested it. There was a lot of wide-eyed stares as they saw the blackout inducing blue drink handed to the girl that they had all known since she was in elementary school. Their little Janey was turning into an adult.

"To Mystik Spiral," she toasted them as they stood in a tight circle a few feet from the bar. There was nothing like a bar on a weekend, cramped with little seating. Especially nights like this one where the barstools were taken away to make it easier for people to get to the bar, ensuring everyone in the place had to stand in close quarters. It was no wonder that Trent slipped outside and Daria took that opportunity to get the hell out of there as well. She was actually a little amazed that the smaller girl had lasted through the entire cramped concert.

Granted, she'd stayed in one spot with a sour look on her face and a stamp on her hand branding her underage and unable to get the social lubrication she needed to make this entire evening bearable. More than once, Jane had seen someone jostle the girl by walking into her, dancing into her, or trying to get her to dance with them. She'd laughed as Daria glared at that guy that stood in front of her dancing with a look on his face that clearly showed that he thought the more he tried she would eventually get into the spirit and start dancing back with equal fervor.

Fortunately, Jane had thought of Daria's inability to socially lube herself before they went to the show and had stopped at a liquor store so she and Daria could take some pre-show shots of vodka before they had to enter the bar. It was that small dosage of self-medication that probably stopped Daria from kneeing that guy in the groin, or worse, turning that acidic tongue of hers on him.

Jane was also pretty sure it was the four shots Daria had taken in quick succession before they entered the venue a few hours before that gave the girl the courage to go after Trent without Jane shoving her out the door and into Trent's arms. Sure, most of the alcohol had to have worn off by now, but since Daria drank so little, it wasn't surprising if she was still buzzing. Nothing like a little liquid courage.

Jane had already taken several trips to the bar and was on her fourth AMF, which would pretty much ensure she was not driving anywhere. She supposed she should have thought of that before she put alcohol into Daria as well. They were still quite a trek from Lawndale, and an even further trek from Boston, and she wouldn't feel comfortable trusting her driving and there was no way in hell she would trust Daria's. She barely trusted the younger girl behind the wheel when she was sober, let alone with a couple of drinks in her.

The band had already planned and were having Quinn drive the Tank home since the younger girl was nowhere near legal age.

From what she understood, the redhead was less than thrilled about not only having to get into the deathtrap, but being responsible for its drunken passengers as well. However, she had conceded when Max had explained how important getting a few drinks after the show would be to them either way the show went. If it went well, they were going to want to celebrate. If it went poorly, then they would need to commiserate over a few drinks. Now, as their manager she could walk into the situation knowing that her band was going to be drinking and do nothing to stop them from driving – jeopardizing their lives and all of their hardwork – or she could do the responsible thing and respect their right to party and give them a ride home.

Jane was pretty sure it was because Max said it that Quinn begrudgingly agreed.

From what Trent had told her, there seemed to be a mutual attraction between the controlling fashionista and the hot-headed drummer.

If _anything_ happened between them, Jane was sure it would be a sign of the apocalypse. For as long as she had known Max he had bagged on people like Quinn who watched reality TV shows, who paid attention to the latest trends, listened to pop music, ignored world events, and looked down on everyone that wasn't as beautiful as them. He scoffed at his _well-off _ peers of Lawndale who substituted gold cards and new cars for a personalities: the girl's that spent all of their time in a mall and the boys who spent their time on a football field. Quinn was definitely one of those girls, and she dated that kind of guy. Yes, the girl had made tremendous improvements to her character over the last few years, but Jane was all too aware that a tiger doesn't really change its stripes. Quinn was still a fashionista, still a diva, still manipulative. She was slightly more accepting of people not cut from the same pretty mold, but she was a far cry from dating someone that worked a dead end job, played in a band, and had more tattoos and piercings than she did shoes.

Max was everything that Quinn said she would never date. How would he ever take her to Chez Pierre when he lived paycheck to paycheck? How would they get there? In the _Tank_? Unacceptable. Wardrobe? Hello! And the music! Good, God, the music! What would Sandi say? Her reputation as an acceptably dateable girl would be _ruined! _She'd have to pass him off as a charity case to her friends, a project that she was working on to try and make one more guy in the world worthy enough to date some girl lower than herself in the social world. Maybe her cousin or her cousin's weird artsy friend.

No.

Jane was fairly certain that a passing fancy would be all it amounted to. He was impressed by her stubbornness, and let's face it, cuteness, and she liked the fact that someone so unconventional was so smitten by her. The idea of them together was cute, but the actuality of those two personalities interacting with each on a daily basis would be hell for everyone who knew them. And since Jane was one of the people that cared about Max and who had a grudging respect and admiration for Quinn, she could only hope that they never tried to make it anything more than the attraction it was.

The boys raised their glasses and toasted with Jane over the successful show. In their wildest dreams they hadn't imagined the enthusiasm this crowd had for them, bringing Jane back to the moment and aware from the Picasso-esque portrait of a relationship she'd conjured for the drummer and the diva.

Mystik Spiral were far from rock gods, far from the accolades and immortality that came to bands like Zeppelin, The Who, Sabbath, Nirvana, or any of the dozens of other bands that lived on generations later and you can find in any lover of rock & roll's iPod. They were finally not at joke, though. This show, this night, this crowd cemented them as a success, even if it was in the suburbs.

They were a force, a contender. They played music that people wanted to hear, that people cheered for, that people begged for more of. They were accepted.

Finally they could say that they were doing what they always dreamed of, that they were playing music and influencing people. Gone were the days of sitting in a basement smoking pot and dreaming of the future while they practiced the same damn songs that nobody liked with words that made no sense and chords that jarred the nerves at best.

Quinn joined them a few minutes into their celebration with a water in hand and a smile on her face. "I just spoke with Chris and he has assured me we've made more than will just cover the gas money to get here. He doesn't have exact numbers for us yet, but he thinks we'll be pleased with the results."

"Did you see the crowd?" Nick asked her. "Of course we're pleased with it!"

Quinn's smiled again before setting her eyes on Jane, "Lane, what are you doing here?"

"Brother's big night, had to come celebrate with him," Jane said as if it were the most logical thing in the world. It should've been the most logical thing in the world, and she was still beating herself up a bit for not thinking of it sooner, for not visiting more, for not being there for the brother that was always there for her when it was obvious he was going through something deeper than a crush on her best friend.

Another thought occurred to Quinn, "where's Trent?"

"He and Daria stepped outside like 10 minutes ago," Jesse answered, not understanding why Quinn's eyes widened in disbelief or why Jane cringed. All Jesse knew was that Trent would be stoked to see Daria, he talked about her all the time.

Before the redhead could fly off the handle at Jane for destroying her plan, an obviously inebriated man in his mid-twenties stepped in front of Quinn cutting her off from the rest of the circle she stood in. Max frowned in displeasure, a look that did not escape the matchmaker in Jane Lane, no matter how much she wished she didn't see it and didn't feel the urge to make magic happen there. "Hey cutie, you wanna dance?" he asked her.

Quinn did a quick evaluating look at the man, taking in his off the rack jeans, seasons too old shirt, and gaudy gold necklace that screamed "frat douche," and quickly dismissed the idea of fitting the guy in for a date. Just because she was hanging out with more artistic types these days did not mean that any college boy with no style could take her out. "Sorry, I'm here with my friends and we're kind of in the middle of a conversation."

"Come on, babe," the guy tried again, stepping forward even further into her personal space and placing his hands on her hips, causing Quinn to make a noise of disgust. "Ditch these losers and party with a real man."

Max stepped forward, practically seething at this disrespectful treatment to his band manager. "Dude, she said no and you're being really rude," the bald drummer said as he grabbed the guys arm and pulled him away from Quinn.

The guy scoffed at the shorter man, "and who are you? Her boyfriend?"

"What if I was?" Max challenged the guy. "You gonna disrespect my girlfriend to my face?"

Jane looked over at Quinn, who looked completely baffled by this turn of events. She knew how to handle drunk guys in a bar. She no longer actively flirted with guys that she wasn't interested in and that diffused most situations. This guy could have been brushed off easily, despite the fact that he had put his hands on her. She was in control of this situation.

Now it looked like a fight was going to break out.

Nick and Jesse quickly tried to pull Max back, knowing that their drummer, while not the bravest guy in the world, was not opposed to beating the shit out of someone when he was angered, and it didn't take a lot to make him angry. Seeing a girl he had a lot of respect for treated like a piece of meat did not sit well with the temperamental musician.

"Maybe your girlfriend shouldn't walk around looking like a whore and she'd get a little more respect," the guy said to Max.

The punch that landed on the guy's mouth was quick and severe, knocking him on his ass, partially from the force of the hit and partially from the inebriation he already felt. Jesse and Nick dragged Max away from the scene while Jane casually sipped on her Adios Mother Fucker and looked at the startled redhead and the laid out frat douche at her feet. This was the first barfight that Jane had witnessed and it didn't surprise her in the least that it was some of her brother's friends throwing the punches. She'd been to enough concerts with the band to know that they sometimes got out hand, especially Max, and especially when he'd been drinking.

The college boy didn't stay down long, quickly getting to his feet and bum-rushing the drummer as he stood with the other guy's, trying to calm down. The two guys fell to the ground where fists started blindly flying at each other, landing body and face shots with dumb luck more than any sort of fighting skill.

Three years ago and Quinn would have encouraged the fight.

She would have hopped up onto a bar stool and girlishly encouraged the two men to beat each other up with false "stops!" while she told anyone in the vicinity that they were fighting over her and that she was so embarrassed by it. The Quinn of three years ago adored the attention she received from men fighting over her, it showed how popular and desirable she was.

Jane was surprised to see that the Quinn of today looked honestly mortified at this barbaric display of male ego vying for a girl's attention. This was a _venue_ that she wanted to keep booking for the guys and Chris would not ask them back if they started bar fights! Max was going to ruin any chance of them playing here again and if tonight was any indication, they could have played here successfully often.

"Max, stop it!" she screamed at him.

Jane protectively stopped the girl from running into the fray, sloshing her bright blue drink on herself and Quinn in the process. "Whoa, Red, let Nick and Jesse handle this. No sense you jumping in the middle of it and getting yourself hurt." She nonchalantly wiped the spilled drink on her hands off on onto her clothing, ensuring that she would smell like a walking bar for the rest of the night.

Quinn groaned as security surrounded the four guys – Jesse holding Max back to the best of his abilities and Nick doing what he could to stop the other guy from tackling Max again. "We're getting kicked out," she muttered where only Jane could hear her. "I haven't been frickin' kicked out of a bar since I was thirteen."

Jane raised an eyebrow at that, but decided it was a conversation best left for another day. She was definitely going to ask for the story of a barely teenaged Quinn getting bounced from a bar when they weren't currently getting bounced from this bar. For Jane, a bar bouncing was an entirely new experience and one that she was thrilled with. It was a Lane right of passage into true adulthood when you were thrown out of a bar and told not to come back. All of her siblings had been 86'd from at least one bar. Summer for public indecency after she danced naked on the actual bar when she was 16, Wind for being too intoxicated when he broke down into hysterics after his first wife left him when he was 21, Penny for starting a brawl with another girl over politics when she was 19, and Trent for a fight with another patron after a Spiral show when he was 22 after a guy made some not so flattering comments about the band. Jane wasn't sure if she counted this as her official indoctrination, seeing as how she hadn't done anything for this removal, unlike all of her siblings.

Throwing back the rest of her drink, she cheekily put her glass into a bouncer's hand and waved at him as she and Quinn followed the rest of the band outside where they were promptly told to move on. The drunk troublemaker made some parting comments about the band, about the music, and about the two girls with them before he stumbled on his way down the street.

Max, still seething, had to be held back by both of his band mates before he ran after the guy and continued the pointless fight.

"I'm so embarrassed right now!" Quinn groaned once the drunkard was out of sight.

For the first time since Jane had known her, Quinn did actually appear embarrassed over the fact that two guys fought over her. She'd seen her amused, endeared, and annoyed by it, but never actually discomfited by it. She chalked it up to personal growth.

"What the hell were you thinking?" the girl suddenly shrieked at Max, glaring at the sullen drummer as he stood with his arms crossed a few feet away from her. "They paid us to play there. We're never going to get invited back now!"

Max glared at the redhead, annoyed that she was angry with him when the only reason he'd hit the guy was to defend her. "He disrespected you. I'm not going to let anyone treat you like some brainless idiot."

Quinn looked startled at the reason why Max went on the offensive. She'd had boys get into a fistfight before because they were trying to impress her by showing her how weak the other guy was, but never because they were honestly trying to defend her. "I could have handled him," the girl grumbled, losing the anger in her voice as she faced the startling revelation that a guy actually respected her.

Jane watched the little tiff with more than a mild sense of dread. The relationship would be like staring into a solar eclipse for all of their friends – painful and scarring, yet something almost seemed right about these two hot-headed people that were both a lot more soft than they cared to present to the world.

Jesse and Nick didn't seem to have an opinion on any of it now that the fight was over and they were left standing outside of the bar with no plans. They talked of going to another bar or heading back home to continue the party, while Quinn and Max took to ignoring each other, both unsure of what the hell was happening between them.

That left Jane to wonder about the fate of her brother and best friend, who were nowhere in sight for this little comedy the rest of their motley crew were performing. Part of her hoped that they were off confessing their eternal love to each other, but knowing the both of them, they were probably awkwardly hemming and hawing their way around foreign feelings and self-doubt, confusing each other and themselves so much that they would walk away from the evening not knowing what hit either of them, but knowing that nothing changed.

Despite the success of the show, Jane was starting to consider the evening a disaster. The sullen looks on both Max and Quinn's faces showed that they were thinking the same thing, while the obliviousness on Jesse's and Nick showed that the two had obviously imbibed too much and weren't aware at how the little scene they caused probably cost them bigger than not having a place to finish up their night's drinking. Though with Jesse, he might not have understood it whether or not he was sober.

"Where the hell are Daria and Trent?" Quinn muttered. They couldn't leave this place without them. At this point, she just wanted to go home, get a good night's sleep, and come up with some way to apologize to Chris for the way the band behaved after the show.

No one answered her, and so the group of people fell into their own thoughts while they waited outside for the two missing members of their group.

* * *

><p>They sat silently, but not uncomfortably, in a booth at a chain 24-hour diner not far from the nightclub. It had been Trent's idea. Get her away from the club, get her someplace they could talk, and don't freak out, don't make a fool of yourself, try to maintain some semblance of a level head.<p>

It was hard, given the fact that he had pulled her into a hug the second he saw her, eliciting a startled "eep!" from the petite girl.

He'd rarely hugged her before. Hell, he'd barely touched her before. A couple of quick hugs and kiss on the cheek was the closest intimacy he'd ever had with her, a kiss he'd regretted as it was supposed to be the ending of a relationship that had never started, but now he saw was only the beginning of a relationship he'd always wanted.

She hadn't pulled away from him, hadn't protested the movement and he felt her relax and wrap her arms around him as well.

When he'd finally ended the embrace, he was surprised to see that she hadn't blushed. He remembered a time he couldn't look at her without color flooding into the girl's cheeks. Daria wasn't that high school girl any more, though. He was aware that she'd been in a couple of serious relationships since that time and held no illusions that she was as innocent in terms to physical relationships as she was when she was in high school.

Quinn was right, Daria was no longer a little girl. She was an adult, a woman. She was beautiful.

The last thing he wanted to do was go back into the nightclub with the band and the fans. It didn't matter how well the show had gone if he could spend time with her. They couldn't talk in a crowded bar, they couldn't be alone. He didn't know when he'd get another opportunity to see her in person. Why would he waste it to drink with people he saw everyday?

She'd been more than receptive to the idea of not going back into the club, partially out of wanting to be alone with Trent and partially out of not having to be in a club surrounded by drunk people. Mostly out of not having to be in a club with the drunk people. It was slightly easier, being slightly inebriated herself, but it was still akin to torture being in that club. For the first time since she met Trent, though, the torture wasn't from the music. She supposed that was something.

So they sat.

Each had a coffee in front of them and a basket of chicken strips on the way. They'd already exhausted the extent of conversation of what she was doing there in the first place and how well the show had gone.

If either broached the subject that they wanted to, the comfortable feeling of being around each other would be gone. Did either of them want to have a heavy conversation in a chain diner in Briarwood? Would Trent get another chance if he didn't start the conversation? Would he regret it for the rest of his life if he didn't?

"You look great," he said quietly. It wasn't a lie. She had truly grown into her own. A few years ago and he never would of thought he'd be sitting across from Daria without her glasses on, with her hair in a braid and a simple silver chain around her neck. She wore a long sleeved green top and a black skirt with a pair of Doc Martens. She looked more confident, more comfortable, more aware of whom she was as a person.

A light blush colored her cheeks for the first time since their reunion. She tilted her head slightly to the right and raised her right shoulder in a half shrug while a small smile played on her lips. "As do you, Trent; my sister certainly knows how to clean someone up."

He nodded, "she knows how to kick my ass, that's for sure."

Daria considered that. She knew that her sister was a strong motivator, and not just to guys. She hadn't forgotten how Quinn helped Sandi lose weight after she broke her leg. Sure, Quinn's motivations for helping people were rarely selfless, but that didn't make her results any less impressive.

She knew that the minor attraction Quinn felt for Trent had flitted out into a comfortable friendship. They respected each other and had a relationship built on striving to make the other succeed.

"Thanks for helping her, giving her some purpose," Daria said. "She's been kind of adrift for a few years now."

Trent smiled lazily and shook his head, "I'm not doing it for her. I'm doing it for you."

Daria froze and looked him in the eyes. He saw the fear there, the panic, the urge to run from a situation she couldn't control, a confession she wasn't willing to hear.

She impressed him by simply lowering her gaze and letting out a heavy sigh.

The Daria of a few years ago would have run.

She would have bolted from a situation that would have made her face emotions – hers and someone else's. She would have fled from a situation that made her confront the self-doubts that plagued her. It was easier to lookout. It was easier to judge from afar and deny her feelings.

The Daria of today fought that urge to disappear. She didn't look any more comfortable with it, but she recognized that running from a scary situation wouldn't get her anywhere.

The waitress dropped off their chicken strips before Daria acknowledged Trent's comment. "We agreed it wouldn't work a long time ago, Trent. We're too different."

Color him surprised. She was actually going to talk with him about this – about the mutual attraction and mutual confusion they brought out in each other. "That was a long time ago, Daria. I was a kid, mentally if not physically. You deserved better and I never believed I could be. I'm willing to be better."

She shook her head. "What makes you think that I wanted you to be any different than you were?"

He smirked, "because you lost faith in me." He ate a chicken strip, dipping it in ranch and observing her. "We were too different back then. We would have ended up hating each other."

"We still might," she said firmly, leveling him with that practical gaze of hers that always undid him. "Despite the physical changes we've gone through and the slightly different attitudes we have about the world now, we're still those people sitting in a pizza shop looking at each other and seeing all of the ways the other could bring out the worst in us. Getting rid of my glasses, changing my outfit, and braiding my hair doesn't make me any less critical or demanding of those around me. I would still expect you to honor your commitments and I would be disappointed and unforgiving if you couldn't."

He shook his head, amused to an extent that she couldn't see past her own misgivings that it wasn't about the clothes or the hairstyles. It was her willingness to stay and talk about it. It was his willingness to try for it that showed their growth and why he thought they stood a chance now when he had given up on it for so long. "Three years ago that terrified me. Hell, three months ago, that terrified me. Now it's what drives me. I want to live up to your standards."

Daria picked at her own chicken strips and formulate her thoughts. Some time was bought as a couple of lively club-going girls in low cut mini-dresses came over to their table and congratulated Trent on the show, telling him how much they had enjoyed Mystik Spiral's sound.

Her eyes remained fixed on him as he thanked the girls, his laid back nature doing nothing to discourage their drunkenly flirtatious advance, but at the same time doing nothing to imply he was interested in them in the least.

The two girls giggled and said goodbye to him, never once looking at Daria, before they found their way to their own booth in the restaurant.

"You shouldn't have to feel like you have to change yourself for me. You were fine the way you were."

He chuckled and coughed into his hand before taking a sip of his coffee. "Come on, Daria, I think we both know that there's something pretty wrong with a guy who lives in his parents house, sleeps all day, writes and plays sub par music, and does nothing with his life. I was a bum. You were too good for me. We both knew it."

A frown twisted her features, he could see the thoughts dancing in her eyes, evaluating his words and formulating a response to them. "I was an arrogant, self-righteous, bitch. I still am. Why are you interested in committing yourself to my constant scrutiny, my constant disapproval?"

"Because if I can live up to your standards, if I can make you see me as somebody worthwhile, then I know that I'm worthwhile. You're a tough, but fair critic. The guy you fall in love with has to be able to handle that."

The flush that took over her features reminded him so much of the first few years that he knew her. Then, she could barely hold a conversation with him, barely face him without succumbing to that tomato red complexion. Now, it took him mentioning the guy she was in love with, when they both knew it was him.

Silence befell them.

The comfortable silence of two people who had reached an understanding. They finished their chicken strips and agreed that it was time to go back to the club and retrieve Jane and the rest of the band.

Trent picked up the tab on their meal and they began the walk back to the club. Daring it, he reached out and took her hand in his as they walked. She paused and looked over at him as his calloused hand grasped hers. "Thanks for coming tonight," he said. "You don't know what it means."

She smiled softly, "yes, I do, Trent."

He leaned down and pressed his lips to hers, taking them both by surprise with the gesture. It was quick, a passing of flesh between two people. Their eyes met briefly, each waiting for the other to run screaming into the night at this turn.

Trent smiled as he saw the acceptance in her eyes. Nothing she said or did was going to make him give up on her.

Tugging lightly on her hand, he resumed the walk back to the club where they met the rest of their party in silence.

* * *

><p><em>Thanks to all of my readers for your support and your kind words. Each and every one of you keeps my drive to keep writing going!<em>


	24. Trophy Museum

Daria woke up in hell.

A hell far worse than fire and brimstone and eternal tortures brought upon her by a red, hoof-footed giant with a pitchfork and horns. She woke up in her parent's house in Lawndale.

Far worse, her old bedroom had been stripped of its gray padding and sawed off bars. A cheery lavender paint adorned the walls with a white trim around the wainscoting. The white sheets and comforter did little to make her feel welcome in this farcical version of her teenage bedroom.

The poetry carved into the closet walls had been covered up during the revamping of her room.

It was depressing and a room she never wanted to wake up in.

She could hear Helen and Jake downstairs in the kitchen going about their Saturday morning routine. Daria doubted they even knew their eldest child had spent the night in their home. Grumbling, she threw the covers further over her head and tried to block out the sunlight filtering in through the white lace curtains. For not the first time in her life she was grateful for the fact that she couldn't see anything upon first waking up. The sight of her haven permanently destroyed, all of the angst and character stripped from it, could only ensure that her day be miserable.

Hadn't she sworn to herself to avoid this place at all cost?

Her mind drifted to the previous night as her body desperately pleaded to drift back to sleep.

Even now she struggled to keep the blush off her cheeks.

Trent kissed her.

Not passionately, not for any duration of time really, but it had been one of the most spectacular kisses of her life. She'd never felt for any guy like she did for him, never wanted a guy in her life like she wanted him, never cared.

It had always been an impossibility, a farfetched fantasy that Trent Lane would look at her as something more than "Janey's little friend." Even when he had made his intentions clear via phone and internet conversations, it hadn't seemed possible, and she had run from the impossibility of it all.

Seeing him, though…seeing the way that he looked at her. Hearing the humor in his voice as he faced her insecurity and tried to convince her that he would change everything about himself to earn her heart. The sincerity and conviction in his tone…She didn't deserve that.

She'd wanted to fight it, logically she knew all of the reasons that they should back away and let whatever this was go, but him taking her hand in his – the way her skin tingled at the soft caress of his fingers on hers, still gentle although made rough by years of playing guitar without a pick – completely undid her. Her mind could barely comprehend the affectionate gesture.

Then he kissed her.

Out of all the things she thought might happen, she hadn't really let herself think about that possibility. Not really. Sure, she'd thought about them kissing before, but never as something that could actually happen. It had always been a schoolgirl whimsical fantasy that she chastised herself horribly for allowing herself to indulge in. It seemed so natural. So right that it happened last night. So right that he had so casually kissed her and then continued on his way like it wasn't something she should freak out over.

And she'd done her damnedest to not be that girl that freaked out over the smallest thing and overanalyzed every minute detail of the encounter.

When they'd gotten back to the club, they'd found the rest of their group milling around the Tank in the parking lot.

She had removed her hand from Trent's before they got to the vehicle and he had accepted the distance without question. It was new and still undefined what existed between them. She needed to work it out in her own head before she made any announcement, no matter how subtle, about it. He'd smiled at her and she knew that he understood that she wasn't ready.

When they rejoined the group, it was clear to Daria from the expression on Quinn's face that something had upset her little sister. Quinn was never one to mask anything, treating every crisis that inconvenienced her with the same level of exasperation, whether it be a chipped nail or a nuclear meltdown.

"Frickin finally!" Quinn exclaimed as she saw them before opening the Tank and climbing into the driver's seat. She impatiently started the van and waited for the members of Mystik Spiral to pile in with her.

Jane smiled at the sight of her best friend and brother walking up together. Daria figured it was because there was no anger and no tears on either of their faces. Sure, neither was grinning and there was no declaration of love, but it was better than the worst-case scenario of them already hating each other before a relationship even started.

The youngest Lane sibling tossed a set of car keys to her brother. "We've been waiting forever for you two! Trent, you haven't drank anything in a while, why don't you give me and Daria a lift home?"

Her brother raised an eyebrow and Jane shrugged. "Hey, I'm drunk, Daria's a horrible driver, and I don't want to leave my car in this Podunk town. You're the only option!"

"Hey!" Daria protested, taking slight offense to the sleight on her driving skills.

Jane smirked at her and shrugged. Trent simply nodded and walked towards Jane's beat-up clunker.

"I'll sit in back!" Jane announced, running ahead of her friend and hopping into the back seat of her 1995 blue Ford Aspire.

Daria forced the look of annoyance onto her face that she had every other time in their relationship that Jane had shoved her and Trent together. Shrugging it off, she walked to the car and watched with a wry smile of her own as Trent struggled to make the small car drivable for him. His head nearly touched the ceiling of the car. For once, Daria had been glad for her short stature. She never had any issues with legroom or hunched shoulders in Jane's piece of shit car.

The drive had been lively with Jane regaling them with the story of the band getting kicked out of the club. Trent had been less than amused that Max had hit a patron in the venue they played and had jeopardized their chances of playing there again. Daria had been less than amused with the thought of her sister dating Max. Sure, she knew he was a nice guy underneath the layers of faux anger and punk rock angst, but at the same time, Quinn had only ever been genuinely interested in one guy before and it had been devastating to the girl's ego when that guy shot her down due to a lack of depth. She didn't want her sister to feel like she needed to change herself for another guy or doubt herself when that guy decided he didn't like her.

Loathe as she was to admit it, Quinn was uniquely beautiful – not in her appearance, but in her personality. Sure, she was cute physically, but what made people drawn to her was her effervescent personality. She was _bubbly._

And it worked on her.

Daria would hate to see her sister try to change that about herself to fit in better with a guy that was perpetually upset about something – even if Daria was fairly certain it was all an act. She'd seen moments in Max where he was a sweet guy and showed that suburban upbringing he tried to pretend he didn't have.

She would just hate to see Quinn lose herself because of a guy.

Of course, a lot of that could be projection. She was afraid of losing herself to a guy. Trent had always had the power to render her speechless, make her doubt herself, make her question herself. It wasn't anything he said or did, it was simply the fact that she wanted him to like her so much that she didn't know how to be herself around him.

It had changed over the years. She could recognize that he had been right that they had both changed, and not just physically. Three years ago, she would never have taken shots in a parking lot with Jane. Three years ago, she would never have gotten and kept a belly button piercing without questioning every micro-reason she might have had for getting it. Three years ago, she would never have held a direct conversation with Trent about her feelings for him.

Three years ago he couldn't have kissed her without her freaking out.

She wasn't the same girl that came to Lawndale with the attitude that everyone around her was an idiot unworthy of her time or attention. She'd learned that even though few people could rival her mentally, each person she knew had a unique quality that she could learn from. She wouldn't say it made her softer, but it definitely made her less hardened.

She sighed.

There was no way she was going back to sleep.

It amazed her that she'd been able to fall asleep in the first place, but she wasn't used to late night clubbing and long conversations with dark haired musicians with disarming smiles. She'd been tired and had crashed out fully clothed in the bed.

Sighing again, she pulled herself out from under the covers and then crinkled her nose as she looked semi-blind around her teenage bedroom. Perverted. They perverted it and totally killed its character.

Standing she padded her way into the bathroom to put in her contacts and use the toilet before she wandered down the stairs and into the kitchen where her parents were, her father reading the paper and her mom talking on the phone with Erik Schrecter, as always.

"Daria?" Helen said in surprise, stopping mid-sentence as she saw her eldest child pull some Pop Tarts out of a cupboard and put them in the toaster before helping herself to the coffee sitting on the counter. "No, Erik, my oldest just walked in…you remember Daria! No, that's Quinn…no, that's still Quinn…Oh, never mind. No, I have to go, Erik…okay, okay, we'll talk about this later…okay, Erik, bye!"

Helen rolled her eyes as she hung up on the man for the third time that morning. Gathering herself she addressed her oldest child who had taken her gourmet breakfast of champions and settled herself at the table. "What are you doing here, sweetie?"

"Mystik Spiral concert last night, Jane wanted to go," Daria said as she reached for a section of the paper Jake wasn't reading.

A slight frown crossed Helen's lips at that one. She still wasn't sure she liked the idea of Trent and her little girl dating. Those rocker types only had one thing on their minds. Yes, Trent had shown her that he really cared about both of her daughters, but still, she didn't want Daria to make some of the mistakes that she had and find herself in the family way while trying to put herself through school. "Daria…" Helen began, and inflection on the first syllable alerting her child that a lecture was forthcoming.

Abruptly Daria cut her off. "That tone tells me you have something objectionable to say about choices I'm making in my life. It's really early for me on a Saturday morning, mom, and I haven't had my first cup of coffee yet, so as much as I would enjoy a talk that takes you back to your wild teen years, I'm going to spare us both the flashback and stop you right there. Yes, Trent and I are interested in each other as more than friends. No, we have not slept together. Yes, we have kissed. No, I'm not planning on dropping out of school and becoming a roadie for the Spiral. Yes, I am probably going to end up in a relationship with him. No, I'm not going to give up on all of my dreams just to support his. Does that just about cover it?"

Her eyes never raised from the article she was reading on the recession and the current unemployment rates. The economy was in the shitter and both parties were busy blaming each other and accusing the media of being biased. While the politicians squabbled on who was to blame instead of figuring out how to fix it, the rest of the country was falling apart.

Helen frowned again as she looked at her eldest daughter.

Sometimes she forgot how well her daughter knew everyone around her. "I just want to make sure you know what you're getting into and that you're being careful. I'd hate for you to compromise your ideals."

Daria put down the paper and leveled her gaze onto her mother.

Helen took in the differences in her daughter, her messy auburn braid and glasses-less brown eyes. She looked more mature, more aware, and more put-together, even as she sat barefoot in last nights outfit in her parents dining room eating Pop Tarts. "When have I ever compromised myself for a guy? Hell, when have I ever compromised myself for anyone?"

Her mother nodded, knowing that she just didn't want her daughter to repeat her mistakes. "I know; you're a lot more practical than I ever was."

"Hey, Helen, it says here that the government has created a robotic cheetah that can run up to 18 miles an hour! Can you imagine? 18 miles an hour!" Jake said excitedly as he lowered his section of the newspaper and looked at his wife expectantly.

"Better not let the real cheetahs know we're trying to replace them. That 50 mile an hour difference in speed between the robotic cheetahs and the real ones could prove detrimental to our health should they decide to strike back." Daria intoned, raising her own newspaper back up.

"Hey, kiddo!" Jake greeted her. "What are you doing here?"

"Jake!" Helen growled warningly, not believing her husband had the ability to completely tune out everything around him.

Behind her paper, Daria smiled. No matter how much she and Trent had changed, she could always count on her parents to remain exactly the same. It was reassuring to know that she could show up unannounced at their home and fall back into a familiar routine with them. It made all of the large differences she saw in herself and everyone she interacted with somehow less threatening.

"Well my prison pen pal, Hoss, got out of the slammer last week and he was passing through Boston on his way to Florida, so I decided it would be a good idea to hop on the back of his Harley…"

"Daria!" Helen cut her off in the same exasperated warning tone she spoke to her husband in.

Daria smirked and looked over at her mother. Usually she'd let her finish.

It was enough, though, the seed was planted.

"Did you hear that, honey? Daria has a pen pal…hey, wait a minute… Helen!"

"Calm down, Jake," Helen sighed, shooting a withering glare at her instigating daughter who simply kept reading the paper, the self-satisfied smirk still on her lips. "She was joking."

"Right. I knew that!" Jake quickly covered. "So, kiddo, how long are you in town for?"

Daria lowered the paper and regarded her father. "The plan's just for the night, Jane and I'll probably head back to Boston in a few hours."

"Nonsense!" Helen said quickly. "You're already here, you might as well spend a day with your family instead of just showing up to see a band play and then running right back to Boston, especially since you're cutting your summer trip short to just a week. And about that, young lady, I'm very disappointed that you're only spending a week here this summer. If you have the money and the spare time to drive down in the middle of the school year to attend concerts, then you have the money and the time to spend more than a week with your family."

Daria didn't see how that logically followed and let her mother know as such. "It was a Friday night, we saw a show, and stayed at our family's houses and want to go right back so we don't spend any unnecessary money. That doesn't equate to more than a week away from my job."

"You're staying until tomorrow," Helen said firmly. "You will spend some time with your father and me. We don't see you enough as it is."

"I really couldn't inconvenience Jane like that," Daria tried to protest.

"I'm sure Jane and Trent have a lot to catch up on. I know that he has missed her a lot and I'm sure she'll be more than happy to accommodate your request to stay another night."

Daria crossed her arms and glared at her mother, knowing that she was right. Jane would be more than happy to stay and push her and Trent at each other for another day. Quinn would be no help in getting her out of it. And, unfortunately, she had no homework left in Boston to do this weekend that she could claim she needed to get back for. Sometimes being extremely intelligent didn't pay off.

Helen smiled for the first time in the conversation, seeing in her willful daughter's eyes the sign of defeat. It was always a pleasure going toe-to-toe with her eldest child and coming out victorious, especially when no cash had to exchange hands. She had been afraid that she was losing her touch when she realized that Daria scammed her into not fighting for a longer summer visit, but when it came to thinking on her feet instead of walking into it with a plan, she still had her daughter trumped.

"Fine," Daria relented before turning her attention back to the newspaper as her father already had. She figured they would forget about spending time with her anyway as soon as Erik called back and some sort of sporting event came on that her dad wanted to watch. After that, it could be a lazy day in Lawndale with Jane before hitting the road again tomorrow.

Besides, she couldn't help but be a little happy at the thought of seeing Trent for a little longer.

* * *

><p>A few blocks over, the youngest Lane siblings sat at their dining room table each with a bowl of cereal and a cup of coffee in front of them.<p>

This was unusual for Jane for several reasons. 1. Her brother was conscious before noon, showered, shaved, and looking awake and ready for his day. 2. When she went to serve herself breakfast, she found a pretty well stocked kitchen with options on what to have that morning. 3. _She _was awake before noon on a Saturday.

"So…" Jane began as her brother took a bite of his Cocoa Pebbles. "You and Daria looked pretty comfortable together last night."

Trent looked at her and did his best not to smile at that. They _had_ been pretty comfortable with each other. She'd let him discuss a lot of what he'd been too afraid to over the last few years, she'd let him hug her, hold her hand, and kiss her. It had been an amazing night for the singer.

Still, this was Janey, a chronic yenta with good intentions, but a really horrible track record when it came to shoving him and Daria at each other. He appreciated that she and Quinn got the ball rolling again for them, but he really didn't want his sister touching the relationship any more than she had to. "We had a good talk," he said simply, not wanting to expand upon it any further than that.

"Talk, huh?" Jane asked as she swallowed her own cereal. "You crazy kids these days with your wild nights of passionate _talking._ Why, when I was your age, we did something other than talk when the person we're in love with chases us out of a bar and we disappear with them for over an hour."

"Times, they are changing," he agreed easily.

Jane smirked at that. No matter what differences she could see in her brother, the alertness, the cleanliness, the general awareness he seemed to exude, she could always count on him to play off her in conversation. She could say any off the wall thing to him and he would match it, or at least go with it.

"Something happened last night, didn't it?" she pressed him for the information, leaning forward in her seat to observe her brother's reactions.

He nodded, "the band played really well and the crowd seemed to like it. Then Max fucked it up. I feel bad for Quinn, she's gonna have to smooth things over with Chris."

"And Max," Jane agreed. "It's too bad you and the Divine Miss M were missing for that bar brawl. Care to tell your darling little sister what you two talked about that was so much more interesting than your band mates and adorable baby sister?"

Trent appeared to think about it before he shook his head, "no."

She glared at him. "You know she's going to tell me. Whatever you said to her is going to put her into a crisis mode and as her best friend, she's going to spill everything, so you might as well tell me now what I have to look forward to."

"Did she seem like she was in crisis in the car last night? She seemed pretty calm to me."

Jane hated that he was right. She knew that they had hashed something out. She knew that there was no way the two of them sat down after Trent made his feelings clear and didn't talk about it. Trent wasn't the kind of person that let things go unsaid once he made up his mind about something and there was no way that they were gone that long with out Daria having said _something_ back about it.

"Did she at least admit that Mike's gay?" Jane asked him sourly.

He coughed on his cereal at that and quickly swallowed some coffee to clear his pipe. "She's dating a gay guy?"

"She's still dating him?" Jane cried in disbelief. "Jesus, Trent, what the hell did you two do if you didn't get her to admit that she's made up a boyfriend to avoid getting into a relationship with you?"

He thought about that. The subject of her new boyfriend hadn't come up at all. Daria had a serious conversation with him about their mutual attraction, had allowed him to hold her hand as they walked, and hadn't hit him or ran when he kissed her. During their time together last night, he hadn't once thought to ask her about Mike and she hadn't brought him up. He supposed it lent some credence to Jane and Quinn's opinion that the relationship was a sham.

"Didn't seem important at the time," he said with a shrug. It really wasn't. He knew now, beyond any doubt, that Daria loved him. She might not be ready for a full public confessional about it, but they both knew that the attraction was more than mutual and way more than physical.

His sister seemed less than thrilled with his blasé response. He wasn't sure if an eye should twitch like that, and he was almost scarily reminded of DeMartino. "You know, Trent, Quinn and I have put a LOT of effort into getting you two stubborn JACKASSES together. The LEAST you could do is let us know if we've succeeded."

"No, the least I can do is finish my breakfast," he said in his same simple tone.

It took all of Jane's might to not throw her cereal bowl at his head. "You're lucky you're my favorite sibling," she muttered before grumpily going back to her own meal.

He smiled as he kept eating. It was really nice having Janey back in the house. He'd missed the way they could banter and infuriate each other. He'd been thinking so much about his siblings lately and now having his little sister home, even if only for a few more hours, had completely lifted his mood in regards to his family.

He still didn't care if this shitty little hovel burnt to the ground, but at least the ghosts had stopped dancing in his memories, making him long for the days when they were altogether. He really didn't want the others to come home. It wasn't the same anymore as when they were all kids trying to survive in a world without any sort of parental guidance. Anytime they were home now, he looked for a way to escape.

They were caricatures of the siblings he'd loved. Summer was no longer the vibrant sixteen-year-old blonde that danced naked on a bar while dreaming of being a fashion designer. Penny no longer seemed delightfully rebellious with just a hint of emphatic behavior. Wind was no longer a sensitive artist looking for someone who understood his tortured soul. They were ugly and distorted now by their own resentments. They'd lost everything that made them beautiful and true to themselves.

All except for Janey.

"I don't think she's dating Mike anymore," he finally said as he finished his cereal and stood up to wash the bowl. "I really don't know if he's gay, though."

"The boy's a peach if I've ever seen one!" Jane said for the second time in twenty-four hours. She was delighted with her brother's admission and decided not to push the conversation any further.

"Wonder what she's holding over him," Trent mused before he wandered down into the basement to set up for practice.

Jane had a smile on her face as she finished her own cereal. Something happened that had made her brother confident in his place in Daria's life. Now all Jane needed to do was put the squeeze on her best friend to figure out what it was.

Speaking of whom, Jane looked at her cell phone as a text popped up from her friend. "Helen is insisting we stay until tomorrow."

Jane wasn't sure how Daria managed to make texts sound exactly like her. She figured it had to do with the lack of exclamation points or emoticons or shorthand and the full use of a period. Text messages were as monotonous as Daria when not infused with a little personality.

She also wasn't sure how she felt about spending a day in Lawndale. It could undo all of the mental health progress she'd made since her last day in this hellhole of a town. However, it could also be fun to tease her brother and best friend for the entire day. "Bribe?" she texted back.

"Sorry. She got me before I had finished my first cup of coffee."

She couldn't blame Daria for that, nor did she really want to make Daria's life more difficult by trying to get her to fight Helen on it. She easily accepted her friend's apology and begrudgingly agreed to stay in town for the day.

Now all she had to do was think of fun ways to embarrass her favorite non-couple couple.

* * *

><p>Across town, Max sat uncomfortably at his father and stepmother's house for brunch. It wasn't often he was awake enough to make it to their weekend brunches, but he hadn't been able to sleep the night before and had found himself rather hungry by the time 11am rolled by, so he figured he'd drop by and mooch the food. He hadn't been here since Christmas, and so far no one had asked him how he'd been in that time.<p>

The familial discord really reminded him that he'd rather be sleeping. He couldn't believe that he was upset that Quinn was mad at him and that he couldn't sleep because of it; he shouldn't feel this way.

He knew that was why he couldn't sleep. He kept seeing that guy grab onto her in the bar and kept feeling that same anger that he felt at someone touching her. Someone disrespecting her. Someone treating her like she was only good for her looks. Like she was a trophy.

And he knew she was right. He shouldn't have punched the dude, at least not until they were outside of the bar and a respectful distance away from the property. It was a stupid move and he knew it. He'd fucked up. He just hated when chicks he respected allowed themselves to be treated like shit.

It happened too much to girls he knew. And he hated that he lost respect for them as they allowed themselves to be treated that way.

His mother.

His sister.

His stepmom.

His eyes moved over to his stepmother as she sat at the end of the table on his right. They'd gone to high school together. She'd been in his grade. He'd had a crush on her. She used to be a cheerleader and a part time model. He'd graduated, she didn't. Two years later, she was married to his dad and running the house, raising his kid brother and acting like another sibling to his sister.

Sometimes he thought she didn't even remember that they went to school together, but he also knew that she wasn't nearly as dumb as everyone took her for and she mostly pretended that she didn't remember who he was. Like that time he'd played that party here with the Spiral. He'd asked his sister beforehand to act like she didn't know him. His step-mom just naturally did it. She put on a good act, downplaying her mind for her appearance, but he remembered how she'd been before she left school. She wasn't stupid, it was just easier to be pretty.

He hated her now.

He hated that she allowed herself to be treated like another trophy for his father. The house was lined with them. The wife, the kids, the artwork, the taxidermied animals. They were all treated the same, all just one big show. One big fucking museum.

It's what he liked about Daria and Jane, and what he'd originally disliked about Quinn. They didn't rest on pretty, they didn't let people treat them like mindless animals in exchange for having an easy life. He'd misjudged Quinn, he could see that now, and when he saw someone who reminded him of his father trying to force her into that trophy role, disregarding the fact that she was a nice person and a brilliant manager, he'd gotten angry and had lashed out.

Turning his gaze to the left where his father sat at the head of the table talking jovially to his stepmom about some sculpture or another he was planning on buying and sticking in the foyer, Max scowled in disgust.

He'd been angry with his father since his parents divorced when he was thirteen and his sister was seven.

His father had gotten bored with his mother. Really, to be fair, they'd gotten bored with each other. They'd been fighting for years, trying to make it work, but neither really wanting to be in the relationship anymore. They'd gotten married young and the adolescent spark of romance was no longer there.

His father would call her stupid. He'd yell at her and say she was only good for her looks, and that she was getting too old for even that to redeem her. Shortly after his little brother was born, his mom ran out on them. The divorce papers were finalized before Max even knew what the hell was happening.

He'd started to rebel from his dad's desire for him to be "Maximilian," the perfect trophy son that played sports and dated cheerleaders (though he'd still found them cute), and he'd started listening to punk music and dyed his hair neon green. That was when he was in middle school.

When he got into high school, he'd taken up the drums, mostly because they were loud and pissed his father off. So did the earring he'd had a friend put in his ice-numbed ear with a safety pin during lunch one day. That had bled and hurt so much and his father had been furious that his son was turning into such a freak.

When he was a senior in high school he'd seen an ad in the Lawndale Lowdown. Three freshmen were looking for bandmates. He'd enjoyed wailing on the drums solo, so he figured why not get a band with it? By then he'd started shaving his head and had pierced his nose as well. His father had pretty much kicked him out of the house for that one. As it was, he was only given until graduation and then his old man wanted him out. He'd disappointed him. He had a lot more hope in the other two kids to be his trophies.

Trent had kind of recognized him as he'd dragged his drums down into the basement where auditions were happening. "You're Max, right?" Trent had asked in that laid back, slow way of his as he took a hit off a joint and offered it to the drummer. "Max Tyler, or something like that?"

Max had thought about it as he smoked the joint. It was by far not his first experience with pot and he could tell if these three kids came into his life, it wouldn't be his last, which he was more than fine with. They seemed alright. Trent was laid back and Jesse was the quiet type. Jesse in those days wore a shirt and his scraggly brown hair only came down to his jaw. Monique had been there too for that first meeting. She'd worn a lot of black and had really pale makeup on, lots of jewelry and she wore glasses. Her hair had been mostly black, but her brunette roots were clearly visible.

There was a question to answer. Was he Max Tyler? Maybe not legally, but he sure as hell knew that he wanted to be Max Tyler. It was much better than being Max Taylor.

"Yeah," finally answered. "I'm Max Tyler."

"Cool," Trent breathed the word, Max was pretty sure he lived that word. "You have your own drums?"

He nodded.

"Welcome to the band."

He didn't even have to audition for them. He'd come clean about his real name a few months later, but none of them cared that his dad was rich or thought any less of him for not having the dysfunctional families that they did. Now, over twelve years later, he really considered those three people, and even Nick who had joined them later after Monique left to form the Harpies, more his family then the people sitting at this table having brunch together.

Ashley Amber was smiling and nodding at his father, but he could tell she didn't care about what he was talking about. His brother, Brian, who sat across from him, was too busy texting his friends to care that his older brother that he hadn't seen in several months sat across from him. The thirteen years between them really made it so the two siblings never really clicked.

Max didn't know why he bothered coming over here and visiting these people. Especially now that Brittany was off at school and didn't need him coming around to look out for her. It's not like Brian wanted him around. It's not like Ashley Amber wanted him around. It's not like his father wanted him around. And if his mother had been there, she wouldn't have wanted him around either. She proved that when she walked out on him and his siblings to pursue her acting career.

Max Tyler didn't belong at this table and Max Taylor, who did belong there, didn't exist anymore. For not the first time, he swore to himself that he would never return to this trophy museum his father created.

This time, he really thought he meant it.

* * *

><p><em>You know when you get one of those ideas in your head and no matter how much you tell yourself you don't want to run with that, you just seem to? Yeah, I was researching Max about a month ago when I had decided I wanted to toy with the idea of a Quinn and Max pairing, and I realized that he's pretty much a blank page in this fandom (except for if we look at the Mystik Spiral pilot episode, but that whole thing would have discounted this fic altogether) and I could have free license with him.<em>

_The names were just so similar, too similar to ignore. I almost did it in the last chapter, but I fought the urge down. I tried telling myself not to do it in this one, but the more I thought about it the more I loved the idea of Max being Steve Taylor's wayward son rebelling against his father's perfect world. A rich kid who was angry at his father for caring so much about appearances._

_So, sorry folks, but that's the way this story just went!_


	25. Age Differences

Quinn's morning started off about as sourly as Max's, but ended on a sweeter note.

Upon waking, she immediately reached for her phone and made the phone call to Chris that she had spent most of the night dreading. It had to be done and she would be damned if she stressed any further about it. Stress caused wrinkles. She didn't want to prematurely age herself just because she was working with people who acted before they thought.

As she waited for the club owner to pick up the phone, she couldn't help but let her mind wander to the man that caused her this frustration.

Her heart had fluttered when he declared himself her boyfriend.

Sure, it was said as a challenge to a drunken idiot who thought he could grope her, but still, Max had said that they were a couple. Part of her had almost wished that was true.

Almost.

She had begun to see over the last month or so a softer side to the rocker than she would have expected. He came off rude and brash at first, but she found that he listened to her more than most guys, complimented her intelligence more than most guys, and generally seemed more interested in her for her than most guys.

She'd toyed with the idea of asking him on a date. It would have to be her doing the asking. If she let him plan it, he'd pick her up in that deathtrap of a van of his, take her to some crummy dive of a restaurant, perhaps they'd see some blood and gore movie, and then he'd expect her to put out – either in his dive apartment or in that previously mentioned rolling deathtrap.

Quinn, despite not mindlessly following her friends to the party school of their choice, still had standards, so while she had toyed with the idea of going out with him, she couldn't let herself take it seriously. They were on two very different playing fields when it came to dating and relationships. She was looking for something a little more stable than she thought that he could provide.

Could she get into a relationship with a guy that she wouldn't trust to plan anything for them? She wasn't sure. She did like to be surprised, but only pleasantly so.

Chris answering the phone pulled her thoughts back to the task at hand. Quickly she thanked him for giving them the opportunity to play the previous evening, spun some hype about the enthusiasm of the crowd, and apologized for the way the evening ended.

The club owner had laughed and reminded her that he used to be in a band himself when he was younger. Getting tossed out of the club they played at was nothing new for many musicians. He was just happy it happened towards the end of the evening and not before their set. There was nothing like having to kick a band out of the bar and then not having any entertainment for the evening.

Quinn felt a huge wave of relief wash over her and then felt a twinge of guilt for how she had gone off on Max when he was just trying to look out for her. It had been _sweet_ in a way, that he would try to stop a guy from molesting her. Daria had been the only one to do that for her before.

Shrugging it off, Quinn commenced her morning routine, showering, moisturizing, putting on makeup, blow-drying and styling her hair, picking out an outfit, picking out accessories, and picking out the perfect pair of shoes. She had a band meeting in a couple of hours and she wanted to look her best.

She wouldn't admit to herself _why_ looking better than normal was so important to her. She wouldn't admit that what Max thought of her weighed predominantly upon her mind.

An hour later, as she came down the stairs she heard the television blaring and saw her sister starting her customary home in Lawndale vegetative state. "…Cock-A-Doodle-Who? The Amnesic Rooster, Next On Sick Sad World!"

Quinn frowned at the teaser. "You know, the quality of that show is really going down hill."

Daria turned her head to cast her sibling with an amused smirk. "I don't know, the perils of poultry is pretty riveting television."

The younger sister diverted her path into the living room so she could crash down next Daria. "So…let me see it!"

"See what?" Daria asked in confusion.

"The belly ring, Daria!"

"Oh, you mean Mr. Itchy," Daria said as she lifted the bottom of her shirt to show her sister the jewelry in her bellybutton. It was a simple titanium barbell, nothing elaborate or flashy. It didn't need to be. Daria wasn't planning on baring her midriff for all the world to see. The ring was merely a reminder for herself that she wasn't that same scared teenager she had been. It was the subtle itching in her stomach area that forced her to not bolt out of the diner the second the conversation with Trent got serious. She wasn't that girl anymore. She could handle what her younger self couldn't.

Quinn laughed, "I can't believe you did it again. I can't believe you took it out the first time before I could get you in trouble for it!"

"I'm sure Helen would still pop her lid if you were to mention it now," Daria said as she lowered her shirt and turned her attention back to the television. "Feel free to use that if she starts getting on your case about going back to school."

"Like she'd believe me after last time," Quinn muttered. "Thanks, though."

Daria shrugged, "no big deal. I'm going to be twenty-one soon, it's not like she can order me to take it out anymore."

"Speaking of which!" Quinn exclaimed, her eyes lighting up as she thought of what Daria turning 21 would mean. "We're still on for your birthday right? Les has already booked the Spiral to play the Zon and Jane has handsomely compensated me for being your DD for the evening. I just need you and Jane here in Lawndale and at the Zon."

Daria wrinkled her nose in thought, "didn't my showing up last night ruin whatever plans you had for my birthday?" Part of her had sincerely hoped that it did. The last thing that she really wanted to do was go to the Zon, but she had promised Jane and she would honor the commitment, no matter how much she dreaded the thought.

Quinn frowned softly, carefully, to avoid wrinkles. "Well, your and Trent's mysterious disappearance last night does kind of take the necessity out of everything, since I'm assuming you're a couple now, however, we've already made plans and I think it will be fun for you. We can all still have a good time celebrating your first legal drink!"

"Trent and I are no such thing," Daria corrected her sister, ignoring the prospect of "fun" at the Zon. She was sure it was an oxymoron anyway. In all of the times she had gone to the Zon, she had yet to have an ounce of fun there. If it wasn't for the fact that she had met Tom there, Daria was pretty certain Jane would also say that nothing good came out of an evening at the Zon.

A frown flitted across Quinn's face at that one. She had assumed that the two had worked everything out and were now a matched pair. The idea that they hadn't become a couple hadn't even been an option for her. It seemed so simple. He liked her, she liked him. One said it, the other said it, ba-da-bing ba-da-boom, you've got yourself the world's cutest, most awkward couple. "How did Trent mess this up?"

Daria kept her eyes on the television as the story of the chicken with amnesia unfolded. Apparently damage to the Corpus Callosum worked the same wonders on a chicken brain as it did a human brain. The chicken didn't have amnesia as much as it was a split-brain patient. "He didn't mess anything up. He was very honest and direct, and he let me know how he feels about me."

"And?"

"And nothing. We're friends."

Quinn wanted to scream. She had feared that her sister and Trent would be too inept at social interactions to let the other know that they were in love with them, but it was hard for her to wrap her mind around the fact that they did and still nothing happened. She was an open person. She felt what she felt and she said what was on her mind. If she liked a guy, she told him. She didn't let it fester and she didn't analyze it. She just did what she felt.

It's how she and Daria differed. Daria had to analyze every emotion, every possible pro and con, every conceivable outcome to a situation before she could just let herself go and be free. She was too in her head, had her emotions under too tight of control, to ever just let the cards fall where they may.

Still, she loved her sister's ability to always see one step ahead. Hell, perhaps even twenty steps ahead. Quinn hadn't even done anything to really start Trent's life makeover before Daria knew what was going on and was putting on the brakes to stop it. Quinn wished that she had that ability to really look ahead and plan things. She'd probably be unstoppable if she could foresee events like Daria could.

"Well, are you at least coming to the Spiral rehearsal today?" Quinn asked, trying to keep the dejection out of her voice. Once she had gotten over the annoyance that her birthday plans for a Daria and Trent reunion were foiled, she had really latched onto the idea that last night was the night for it. The Spiral played a great show, Trent was in a weird place, Daria was faking a relationship. The stage couldn't have been more motion-picturesque.

Daria considered the request. It sure as hell beat sitting around the house now that she was stranded in this town for a day.

Predictably, Helen had gotten called into work. Some crisis or another – a client's secret off shore bank account was discovered or Erik got a hangnail. They ranked around the same on the emergency radar at Vitale, Davis, Horowitz, Riordan, Schrecter, Schrecter, & Schrecter. Working at a law office herself now, granted only in a menial position, Daria had learned a little bit more about the power plays and the general stress that non-partners went through as they struggled to make partner.

While growing up, Daria had really only understood that her mother wasn't home, that she chose work over her family. Being exceptionally intelligent didn't make her any less of a child when it came to figuring out adult's motivations. Now that she was an adult herself, Daria still thought that Helen put her career before her family, but she understood that it was the competitive nature of making partner that forced Helen to drop everything and run out the door any time any of the partners needed her for something.

Erik was still the neediest son of a bitch Daria had ever seen.

"Beats sitting here," Daria said to her sister. "What time's the meeting?"

"At one," Quinn answered before standing up and wandering into the kitchen for food.

Daria looked at her watch. It was 12:15 now. She was still in her clothes from last night and she hadn't brushed her hair – or her teeth, for that matter.

With a shrug, she settled back into the cushions of the couch and refocused her attention on Sick Sad World. She'd be damned if she ever spent significant time on her appearance just because she was going to see Trent. That he could not change about her.

* * *

><p>Jane opened the door to her house in amusement to see the younger Morgendorffer sister giving a stoic Daria a tongue lashing for not dressing up. Jane didn't see anything wrong with how Daria looked. Her hair was brushed, she was wearing clean clothes (at least they looked clean) and she didn't smell from this distance.<p>

"Hey Amiga, Princess," Jane greeted them as she stepped aside and let them enter the home.

"Jane, will you tell my sister that when she is going to meet with a guy that she likes she should at least make an effort to make it look like she put some effort into getting ready?"

The dark haired artist shrugged, "nope. Trent wouldn't notice if she got dressed up and that would just upset Daria and make her feel stupid for thinking that he would." It was the same reason that Jane hadn't insisted that Daria do anything spectacular with her hair and her makeup before they went to the concert the night before. If Daria wanted to show up with a braid in her hair and a simple outfit on, then that's how she should go. No reason for her to be uncomfortable while she faced Trent's obliviousness.

Quinn stamped her foot on the ground. "You two are impossible!" she shrieked before heading down to the basement.

"Hey Lane," Daria finally said to her friend. She looked around the living room that they stood in and raised her eyebrows in minor surprise. "It looks clean in here."

"You're telling me!" Jane crowed as she took her friend's arm and dragged her into the kitchen. "Take a look at this refrigerator!"

Daria peered in curiously as Jane flung the door of the aforementioned appliance and couldn't help another raise of her eyebrows in surprise as she saw the well stocked contents inside. "Are we in another dimension?"

"Sick Sad World needs to hear of this," Jane agreed as she shut the door and looked at her friend. "What the hell did your influence do to my brother? The man was showered and shaved before I got up this morning, there's food in this house, it's clean in here – not to mention that his bedroom looks immaculate, like he's expecting some female company in there."

"I refuse to be blamed for his," Daria said, ignoring the implication, as she followed her sister's lead and headed down towards the basement, Jane following close behind her.

Quinn was sitting on the steps as they came down, jotting away in her planner and ignoring the two guys in the room as Trent and Nick tried to hash out new words for a song. It was clear that Nick was not a lyrical genius, but Trent was very patient with him as he tried to rhyme words and make the lines still make sense.

Daria couldn't help but watch the raven-haired man as he sat on the floor with his band mate and scribbled in a notebook ideas that they both had. He always made her breath hitch in her throat just by being in the same room as her. He had a simple grace about him, an ease in his surroundings that she envied and marveled at.

"What are you working on, Red?" Jane asked Quinn as she nudged past the younger girl and found her way to a wooden chair so she could sit down. Daria made her way down the stairs and sat at Jane's feet, exchanging a glance and a smile with Trent as she did so. She knew that Quinn and Jane couldn't comprehend the simplicity of the interaction she had with Trent.

They cared about each other, they loved each other. It didn't need to be huge declarations and dramatic gestures. Being around the other and being able to exchange such simple looks was enough for now. Their emotions were on the table. The timing might not be perfect, what with Daria living a few hundred miles away and Trent really just beginning to find his legs in life, but there was an understanding that they would be there for each other. They would get there. One day the timing would be perfect and they would find their way to each other. They both knew it and accepted it now, the words didn't really need to be spoken.

Though, she had told her mother that she and Trent would probably end up together. That was the closest thing to a confession she had said to anyone on the subject. Damn her caffeine deprived mind for blurting it out to her mother who wouldn't forget a confession like that! Thankfully her father had been too oblivious to her presence in he room to register that his eldest daughter was planning on dating a musician. While Trent and Jake had always gotten along, she kind of feared what her father's reaction would be to her dating the man. Nothing and nobody was good enough for his little girl, after all, and Jake was not opposed to starting a lynch mob when he thought that the occasion called for it.

Quinn began to explain that she was brainstorming ways to promote the Spiral even further. The show last night had been good, great even, but she really thought that they could do better. The demo still needed to be recorded, but she also knew that press needed to get wind of Mystik Spiral's rise to the top. If she could get reporters from the local newspaper, the high school paper, and perhaps the TV station to show up to the next show then they would be exposed to an even wider audience. Her attention was exceptionally focused on the local rock radio station. If she could secure an interview on air, get one of the DJs to mention their show, somehow get them to play a Spiral song, then they would be able to play any bar in the county.

Jane laughed, "damn, Trent, if you had hired her 10 years ago, you guys would be international successes by now!"

Her brother smiled thinly at her before turning his attention back to Nick and the lyrics they were writing. He was all too aware that the last ten years of their lives had been squandered and he really didn't need Janey pointing it out. He was doing his best to move forward despite the stagnation.

Part of that was exploring alternative ideas for the band, and that included getting ideas from the other guys for songs they should write. He believed that Nick had a story in him to tell. It wasn't fair that he and Jesse were the only ones that contributed their thoughts and feelings to the band. The other guys should have some input, besides Max's sub-zero argument. Trent still wasn't sure if Max understood how he went wrong with that one and he still wasn't willing to try to explain it any further than he didn't think people would understand what Max was trying to say. That was essentially the truth. People wouldn't understand, because nothing could be colder than sub-zero.

Speaking of the drummer, Trent couldn't help but realize that he was late to rehearsal. Jesse being late was no surprise, but the drummer was usually early and usually riding him and Jesse for being late. The only times Max was ever late was when he had something on his mind about his messed up family, which wasn't very often because Max did his very best to avoid his father and step-mother.

Max thought that because he came from a well-off family, it meant that he didn't have as many problems as someone like Trent and had no right to complain about how he grew up, but at times, Trent thought that Max might've actually had it worse. Both of them had grown up just wanting someone to say that they cared about them, that they worried about them, that they questioned their actions. Trent had received neglect in return for some of his wayward, attention seeking behavior and Max had received verbal and, at times, physical abuse.

Trent didn't have the anger in him that Max did about the situation. He didn't feel that same passionate hatred for his parents because they chose their own selfish needs over his well-being. The lyricist recognized that his parents were human, and while they made many mistakes, he knew that they cared about him and his siblings in their own unique, absent, and neglectful way. Victor and Amanda had wanted and cared for their children, just not enough to stick around and raise them. Max didn't know that anyone cared about him.

Trent knew that Max hadn't talked to his mother in years and that the relationship between him and his dad was pretty strained, on account of the fact that his dad decided to marry someone Max's age, who looked like a slightly older version of his daughter. It was creepy, Trent agreed with that.

Thinking about someone Steve Taylor's age marrying Janey was one of the few things that could raise Trent's blood pressure. He knew that Ashley Amber was only in it for the money and that it was her choice as much as Steve's to make. It didn't make it any less upsetting to see an old pervert like that marry someone only a few years older than his daughter. It was gross.

So Trent understood why the drunkard the previous night had upset Max so much. It wasn't that he thought that he needed to defend Quinn, he just hated that anyone could think so lowly of her. Trent wasn't sure he wouldn't have punched the guy either if it had been Jane or Daria that someone had disrespected in such a way. Thinking about it, he probably would've done the same for Quinn at this point, too. They were really good friends now and he hated the idea of a drunk guy thinking he could fondle her.

Monique was just about the only important woman in his life that he wouldn't have done it for, and that's just because Monique would've punched him herself. Trent knew that for a fact. He'd seen her do it before and get tossed out of the bar for disorderly conduct. Apparently it was okay to stick your hand up a girl's skirt, but it was not okay for the girl to beat you senseless for it. The bartender's explained that they had bouncers for that. Trent had explained, as he paid for his and Monique's tab, that the bouncers apparently couldn't do their job and should have got the drunk man out of the bar before his friend was violated.

Trent didn't worry about Monique that much. She was a tough chick who could handle herself in both verbal and physical fights. He did worry about Daria and Janey. Both girls had a bad habit of insulting people much physically stronger than they were, without a thought for the consequences. Most people let the snide remarks go, but he really feared for the time that someone decided to take their verbal punches and retaliate with physical ones. Not everyone walked away from such biting comments so easily. He knew that from experience as well. He'd taken his fair share of punches from people who couldn't handle his smart mouthed comments, not that he ever really intended on riling anyone up, he just sometimes said what he thought without a filter on.

Quinn mentioned that a guy had once taken her flirting too far and Daria had stepped in with her no nonsense attitude and made the guy down. Trent knew that it could have ended worse than the guy spitting on her, and he kind of wanted to hunt down the asshole and pound him into the ground for what could have happened and for what did happen. Lawndale wasn't a huge town, he was sure, if he put his mind to it, he could figure out which middle-aged lose it was that had violated one woman he cared for and literally spit on the one woman he loved.

Quinn had waved off his desire to hunt down the man, stating that it was a learning experience for her and that no one had been harmed. Sure, if she or Daria had been physically injured, she would have no problem letting Trent or anyone else who felt like hurting the guy loose on him, but why stir up an old problem at this point when no harm had been done?

Max's arrival into the room shook Trent out of his thoughts. In the drummer's hands were 24 long stemmed yellow roses with a red tip. He sat down on the stair next to Quinn and handed them to her, softly apologizing for being a drunken ass the night before. Explaining that he had acted without thinking and now recognized that he had put all of the work that she had been doing for them in jeopardy because he had thought with his fists instead of his brain. He promised her that if she forgave him, he would never let his actions threaten any work that she had done for them.

It was at that moment that Daria witnessed something she had never seen before, the cheeks underneath Quinn's many layers of makeup turned a soft pink color at a gesture from a guy. The only times she had ever seen Quinn embarrassed was if she had a wardrobe malfunction and someone else noticed it. Even then, Quinn was usually able to laugh it off and spin the situation to her advantage. Her sister just did not embarrass easily.

However, someone as well versed in romance as Quinn was recognized the symbolism of not only the coloring, but also the number of roses that he presented her with. Her embarrassment stemmed mostly from the fact that Max was essentially telling her that he was falling in love with her and was thinking about her every hour of the day. She had never received yellow roses with a red tip before. A dozen red roses all of the time, because that's what guys thought that they were supposed to do, and she disregarded the meaning of those roses each time she received them as a corny and generic gesture that was done without thought or feeling behind it. Max's choice seemed deliberate. As she looked into his nervous brown eyes, she was pretty sure his action and choice was intentional and that he was really fearful that it wouldn't be enough to make her forgive him.

The fact that he was giving her roses in front of two of his closest guy friends didn't escape her, either. He was asking for the ridicule of his life with that gesture, and he was willing to do it because he was afraid that he had really upset her, the girl that he thought that he was falling in love with.

For the first time in her life, Quinn was pretty certain that it wasn't her physical appearance that made a guy think they were falling in love with her, which kind of scared her. She didn't know how to be liked for who she was and not what she looked like.

Making a decision, she leaned over and kissed the drummer quickly, eliciting cat calls from Jane. Quinn's cheeks were once again red as they parted, and Max, after smiling at the fashion-minded girl, stood and joined his band mates where they were still trying to write a song.

"Hey Romeo, where are my roses and apology?" Jane asked Max as he walked past her. "I wasn't done drinking last night and you got me thrown out of the bar."

Max flipped her off and began talking with his assembled band mates, hoping to make everyone forget about his entrance into the room. Trent and Nick, surprisingly enough to Quinn, did not comment on the display of affection Max did upon entrance into the basement.

Trent was just glad that Max found a way to smooth things over with Quinn so that there was no tension between the band member and the manager, and Nick just wasn't looking forward to getting into a fight with Max yet. The drummer had been really hostile last night and Nick wanted to make sure that Max had gotten the actual rage out of his system before he opened his mouth and said something stupid to the drummer that resulted in them beating the living shit out of each other for kicks.

"While we wait for Jesse," Quinn said from her spot on the steps, roses still in her arms, "I just want to let you know that we caught a break with Chris last night and he hasn't decided to shut us out from any future shows. Apparently, because the fight didn't happen before your show, it wasn't as bad as we were imagining."

"Any idea about how much we made?" Nick asked. He couldn't help wondering about it. The number of house shows they were doing had been nice, but this gig was like payday for him. He had rent and child support due. He really needed more money than he was currently taking in by playing high school and college parties.

Quinn shook her head, "Chris hadn't gone in and gotten the final count from last nights drawers. We know that it's good though, right? The place was packed and everyone had a good time…well, except for that one guy, but he was just over served."

"You think it'll be enough to get the demo made?" Trent asked her.

She nodded. Being the only band member that had been in the actual crowd, she had a chance to count some of the heads and she was fairly certain that they would be able to secure studio time and produce the E.P. within the next couple of weeks. "Yeah, if we're not there, we're really close. I'm going to go up to the club and pick up the pay out later tonight. I'll text you, Trent, and let you know how much it was."

"Do you want some company?" Max asked quickly. He couldn't help it. He really liked Quinn and he wanted to be around her. From the way that she blushed and kissed him, he was pretty sure she liked him, too.

Trent shot a look at Daria and frowned. Max was years older than him. Quinn was almost two years younger than Daria. Despite that, they seemed to push this seemingly meaningless detail aside and go forward with the relationship that they wanted. He had tripped up on the age difference years ago. He wondered what their relationship would be like now if he had the guts when she was a teenager to tell her that he was falling in love with her.

Max and Quinn just made it look easy. Boy meets girl, boy likes girl, boy asks girl out. That's the age old formula, but nothing could be that easy where Daria Morgendorffer was concerned. At least not when it came to him and Daria. They stumbled and fumbled over each other and took years to get from step to step.

He was now on the girl knows that boy likes her step. He hadn't asked her out yet. Jane had told him that she and Daria were stuck in Lawndale for the day, if he was ever going to ask Daria on a date, for some real one on one, face to face, alone time not at either of their houses and not stuck by the side of the road waiting for car help, then it should be for tonight.

He knew that he couldn't make a grand gesture. Quinn had nailed it on the head when she said that easy listening ballads and white horses would be wrong. She had also been right when she said that Daria would bolt if he did anything to cause undue attention to be drawn to her. He didn't really want all of that either. He just wanted some alone time with her, like they had last night. Sitting across from her and having a conversation had been amazing for him. That they had talked about their actual relationship had stunned him and elated him, he would have been happy with just talking about whatever was on her mind.

Jesse showed up a few minutes later and, after several harsh comments from Max about the tardiness Jesse displayed, despite the fact that Max himself had been late, rehearsal commenced.

Trent's brain was elsewhere though. He could only think about asking out the brunette girl sitting and talking with his sister through their rehearsal. He had really missed having her and Janey home. For the first time in a long time, he felt like his family was back.

* * *

><p>Special thanks to BIFF1 for the long and super kind review - I have also disappeared places to get in a few more words of a story I'm enjoying and I'm flattered that someone has done that for something I wrote. I agree that I should spend more time proof reading and fixing the errors. I'm usually just so happy I finished a chapter at this point that I upload it before I decide to go back and add to it!<p>

Even more thanks to Ronnie for buying a copy of my book and actually reading it! Totally made my universe with that! I completely get where you're coming from when you say it's darker than what you usually read and it is definitely a far cry from what I write with the Daria stuff - though the introspective, character development is the same. You can see why working on the two simultaneously wasn't working out for me!

Thanks to everyone that has been patient with me on these increasingly lagging updates. I have so many stories in my head that I often get pulled onto different projects. I have no intention of abandoning this story, however!


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